


Evermore

by pls_let_me_in



Series: King of My Heart [2]
Category: RIORDAN Rick - Works
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Fluff, Multi, another universe, eventual angst but not really like it doesn't kill you with pain, they are both sweetheart and whipped, will is a tad bit jealous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:55:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pls_let_me_in/pseuds/pls_let_me_in
Summary: hi! This is the rewriting of a the first sequel I posted of King of My Heart, as I found myself stuck with it, and I have now completely changed the plot. Hope you'll like this!
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: King of My Heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785730
Comments: 33
Kudos: 50





	1. Prologue: to new beginnings, my love

**Author's Note:**

> hi! This is the rewriting of a the first sequel I posted of King of My Heart, as I found myself stuck with it, and I have now completely changed the plot. Hope you'll like this!

Shadows fall from the trees, turn into vapor, and vapor turns into pure cold. One should be scared in front of such dark shadows, especially when they grow under a sun that shines so bright. However, it’s with a sense of expectation that Will watches these shadows.

But they shadow open as a curtain would, they don’t reveal a prince with dark hair and darker eyes, contrasted by a smile so gentle one would think that after all the gods might exist. There’s only four guards, looking at Will like there’s nothing wrong. They drop to their knees, and Will is too confused to notice much else.

“Looking for someone?”

The words are whispered next to his ears, warm, minty breath fans against his cheek.

Almost a year ago, when Will was still married to Nicholas di Angelo of House Pluto, Crown Prince of Aita, they appeared in this same clearing together, stepping out of shadows called by Nico. One year ago, although they were married, Nico would have never surprised Will by stepping out of his own shadow.

He does now. Will’s breath is caught in his throat, not only with delight, but also fear. He almost shrieks, turning on his heels, and finds Nico far closer than he would have imagined.

“Very bold of you, Your Highness.”


	2. to all the sunrises we saw, thinking of each other in the dark

Nico bows to Lord Apollo. Will’s siblings’ stares are heavy on him, to the point that Will himself is fidgeting with the hem of shirt. Meg, his father’s ward, steps forward with glee, but is immediately pulled back by Kayla. Hyacinthus and Lady Daphne exchange an unreadable look. Hyacinthus is holding a pile of blankets to his chest. It’s Will’s newest baby-sister, for whom the celebrations are being held.

“My Lord,” Nico says standing, when it becomes clear Apollo must have forgotten to tell him to do so. Will’s knuckles brush the back of his hand, a pleasant warmth passes through the gloves. Although it is warm already in Delphi, it was far colder in Aita, especially near the River Styx, from where they’ve shadow-traveled.

Apollo steps forward, without even offering his hand in greeting. Nico takes his glove off before doing it himself. There is far too much tension in the air for his liking.

“It’s a pleasure and an honor to offer you hospitality again, Your Highness. In hopes, of course, that you don’t tire of my son again.”

Nico’s stomach sinks. Oh. After all, he’d been surprised plenty of Apollo not moving to war when he and Will annulled their marriage. So he shouldn’t be so surprised now. Reyna intakes a sharp breath. A guard puts his hand on the helm of his sword.

“ _Dad_ ,” Will hisses, his cheeks turning red.

Apollo ignores him. He takes another step forward, making sure to drop his voice so that those on the steps and the Royal Guards can’t hear him. “You humiliated my family and my son once already, Your Highness. You are very lucky my son decided to forgive you. However, I have not.” He put his hand on Nico’s shoulder, squeezing enough to hurt, and smiled. The sun is warm, but chills run down Nico’s back. When he talks, his voice is loud again. “Let’s welcome back the Prince of Aita to our lands, people!”

“So, it could have gone worse,” Reyna says, when they are alone in Nico’s rooms, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

“I just don’t understand why we’re not staying in the same room,” Nico says. He huffs, falling back on the sofa in the middle of the room. Rooms that are fit for a Prince, of course, just not this prince who would very much like to stay with his husband-turned-ex-husband-turned-fiancé. “We’ve been married!”

“We aren’t anymore,” Will says, tucking a strand of hair behind Nico’s ear. He’s keeping them shorter now, it seems. Too short to be in a ponytail. Nico turns back to him with a smile. Will kisses his cheek.

“Is this really your problem right now?” Reyna asks, crossing her hands on the chest. She clicks her tongue. “And I’m supposed to be your chaperone. Keep your distance.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “I seem to recall you telling me we should sleep in the same bed a year ago–”

“What?” Will interrupts, leaning back abruptly, his cheeks heated by embarrassment.

“You were married and I discovered that you weren’t–nor ever had–slept together.” Reyna sits on the armchair next to the alight fireplace, crossing her legs. She looks so calm, like she hasn’t just talked of their previous lac of intimacy. “It was just a suggestion to avoid the divorce.”

Will’s eyes dart between Nico, slouched in his seat, and Reyna, the picture of a wise lady. “Gods of the Earth, are you two being–?”

Nico sighs. “And we’ll be married again shortly, so I don’t see the problem in sleeping together.”

“I’m leaving if you two don’t stop talking of the intimate details of our relationship,” Will threatens, hiding his face behind his hands. Once he finally regains his confidence, he slips in the seat next to Nico. Smoothing the wrinkles in his pants, he talks. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my father. I didn’t think it would be so bad, he’s told me times and times again to follow my heart, so I thought he’d be a bit more understanding.”

“It’s not your fault, Lord William,” Reyna says. “Although some notice would have been appreciated.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Will mumbles.

Nico’s hand envelopes his. His fingers are longer than Will’s, enough to play the piano. Nico has told him once that he used to. On his middle finger shines his family ring, with the pomegranate and the serpent.

“It’s not your fault, love.”

 _Love_. Will shivers, feeling warm and hot all over, and looks up with a small smile. They’ve only seen each other in the Dream Land, thanks to Nico’s powers. After Percy and Annabeth’s wedding in Autumn, this is the first time they’ve seen each other. It almost feels like another life, the one they’ve shared in Caere, next to each other every day. It feels like a dream.

“We’ll need to take a bigger gift for him,” Reyna tells Nico, rubbing her temple. “I’ll tell your father of the most recent developments. If he is in a good mood, he might even laugh at it.”

“Feel free to talk to him on the balcony. Or here and we go to the balcony,” Nico responds, flashing her a smile so innocent even Will wavers for a second.

Reyna isn’t impressed in the slightest. “Don’t try it with me, Your Highness. And let me remind you that there are guards outside these rooms, trained to _feel_ your shadow-travels. Don’t even try to sneak out in the night.” She sighs, her gaze turns to Will, and it feels very much like being scolded, even if she isn’t doing so. “I trust you to have better judgment than the Prince, Lord William.”

Will smiles. “Of course, my lady.” 

They have dinner on the balcony with Lord Apollo and Will’s family. Hyacinthus stops in front of them with a warm smile when they arrive, little kid in his arms, and a smile so bright it could light up the sky.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” He asks, although he already knows the answer, turning her to Nico.

Will giggles, the most melodious sound Nico has ever heard. The little girl opens her eyes slowly, blinking at Nico. Nico tries to smile. Something about kids unsettles him. How should one act around them? What if he touches them, they might feel his shadows and cry. _Gods_ , Will would never forgive him if he made his baby sister cry.

Will squeezes Nico’s elbow, nudging him to get his attention. The blinding smile on his face is reflected in the light of his eyes.

“He keeps asking that, as though anyone would dare say she isn’t,” Will says.

Nico can’t help how a smile of his own tugs at his lips. “Why would anyone lie, when she is just as beautiful as his brother, Lord William.”

“I really hope you aren’t flirting with my brother Austin, Your Highness.”

“Don’t say it too loud,” Hyacinthus says. “Your father has too good a hearing, especially when something he can be petty about is being said.”

Nico stiffens. He wouldn’t be surprised if Hyacinthus were to add something cutting to defend Will’s honor. After all, he’s just as much part of Will’s family as Apollo, Will talks often and highly of him. So Nico waits, but nothing comes.

Will grimaces. “You’re too right. Where is everyone anyway? Are we early?”

Hyacinthus shakes his head. “Your siblings are finishing their lessons, your father was in a meeting. As for Lady Daphne, I wouldn’t know. Let’s sit down in the meantime.”

When everyone arrives, an awkward tension lingers in the air. Nico sits between Lord Apollo and Reyna, with Daphne, on the other side of Apollo, trying to make conversation. Every time Lord Apollo adds something to the conversation –and it is always a well-crafted insult– Will chokes on his drinks or food, while his siblings and Meg laugh.

“Your Highness, how is your sister? We were very displeased to hear she wouldn’t be here,” Daphne tries.

“I was even more to hear someone else would be here.”

Laughs and chocking ensue.

Nico tightens his hold on the fork. In times like this, controlling his powers comes far too difficult. “She’s doing fine, my lady.”

Reyna put her glass of wine down, leaning forward to meet Lady Daphne’s gaze. “Her Highness the Princess is busy building with the preparation of her engagement with General Frank Zhang of House Mars, my lady.”

“Isn’t she too young to marry, though?” Asks Kayla. Then, as an after-thought, she adds: “My lady. Your Highness, too.”

Nico hides a smile behind his glass. Reyna pinches him in the leg with a death-glare, as she always does when she thinks it’s his turn to speak.

“She is, my lady,” Nico says. “However, matters like betrothal take lots of work. They want to marry as soon as my sister comes of age, so they have started planning.”

“Furthermore,” Reyna continues, and sends him a glare he returns with passion. What more could he have added? “Many of the Lords of Aita aren’t too happy with both Royal Children married to foreigners.”

“They must have been happy when the Prince chose to annul his marriage, then.”

To Nico’s surprise, it isn’t him who snaps, although it is a close call. Reyna and Will talk at the same time.

“Could you kindly drop it, father?”

“With all due respect, my lord, it is not wise to talk to the Prince of Aita as if he were a peasant you met on the streets. He is neither that nor your subject.”

For a very long moment, silence stretches over them like a blanket.

“I liked your wedding cake,” Jonathan suddenly says, looking straight at Will. “When you marry again, can we have it again?”

Daphne chuckles lightly, delight makes her look younger. “Dear, you ate too many sweets that day, and didn’t sleep for two days straight. Don’t think I’ll let you out of my sight again.”

Jonathan turns to Nico. “I’ll like you if you get it for me.”

“You can have it without going to Aita,” Apollo cuts in, which for once is good, since Nico didn’t know what to say. “You can have plenty here. Should your brother marry someone else, we’ll still get it.”

“Should I marry someone else,” Will says, and from his voice it sounds like the words are crawling out of his throat. “I will also be divorcing someone else, until there are no more people for me to take as spouse.” He pushes the plate back. The creak of his chair on the marble echoes through the room when he stands. “I’ll be retiring now.”

After the doors shut behind him, no one tries to make conversation again.

“Lord Apollo told me Prince Jason is arriving tomorrow,” Reyna says. “Have you heard anything from him?”

Nico sticks his tongue in his cheek. In the fireplace, flames dance higher and higher. Idly, Nico wonders whether Leo is still in Delphi. Last he heard from him, he was traveling with Calypso to visit some uncle. Not the wisest choice to make in winter, but Leo has never been a prudent one.

“No, not really.”

Reyna nods. “I see.” She twirls the liquid in her glass, and for a long moment the only sound comes from the fireplace. “Do you know why he’s not in the capital?”

“Since it involves Thalia, I believe you would know better than me.”

Reyna sighs. She does that a lot lately.

Piper and Jason spent the whole summer together, separating after Percy and Annabeth’s wedding. When mid-Autumn came, Jason left the capital, and went to rekindle his relationship with Thalia. Although they have never fought, they have spent almost their whole lives apart, resulting in little to no contact between the two of them. Hera must have been thrilled.

“Do you resent him for his decision?”

“She’s his sister.” Nico downs his glass of wine. When he’s in Caere, he never–or very rarely–drinks, even if he’s of age and doesn’t need his Father or Persephone’s permission. This has been a long day, though. “If I weren’t close to Hazel, I would want to be.”

“But?”

“But I hate how he treated my choice to be with Will again. I know it’s–it’s strange. I know it, I really do. One shouldn’t remarry the same person a marriage hasn’t worked with, but I can’t control how I feel, nor how Will makes me feel.” He wishes he hadn’t finished his glass, or that a servant would be around to pour him another. “It doesn’t make much sense to think about. I should have just stayed with him.”

Reyna shrugs. “It isn’t usual, that’s for sure. But it does make sense. Gods, when we were preparing for the divorce, I just wanted to enter in your head to make you see. It was so obvious that you loved him. As frustrating as it was, if this is the route you two need to be happy together, then how can it not be right? Who cares what those other people think. One day, you’ll look back, and it won’t be so important anymore.”

“Thank you.”

Reyna smiles. Her smiles are soft and kind, as the first flowers of Springtime are. In the Royal Palace of Venice, farther south than Caere, they appeared in the first days of April. Nico almost blurts it out, right there and then.

_You bring the flowers before the gods do._

He clears his throat instead. “We should both retire.”

They bid each other goodnight, and Nico goes to his washroom to get changed. As is apparently typical of the south, there aren’t doors separating the rooms, only great arches and windows. When Nico comes out, with his hair still damp and wearing his pajamas, with half a mind of trying to bribe the guards before leaving, he finds Reyna with her shoulders against the door of the entrance, and her hand loosely wrapped around the doorknob.

“I trust you not to take any stupid decision,” she finally says. “You may be young, but remember you are also prince. Your face is the face of the country. Tomorrow in many will arrive, and I really hope the first thing they hear upon being here, is not that the Crown Prince of Aita and his fiancé are sneaking around.”

Nico sighs, nodding his head, his lips turned downwards. “I remember the rules.”

Kayla covers her mouth with her hands, while Austin outright stares at him. Kayla’s head is on Will’s lap, she looks at the Prince that has just appeared in the middle of the room, walking right out of the shadows.

Everyone is frozen. Will can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips as Nico fidgets, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Seeing him with other people so little is strange, Will has forgotten how shy Nico can be, especially with people he knows so little. Maybe even more because they’re people Will cares about.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Will says. “Should we expect your guards to come here in the middle of the night?”

Nico clears his throat. “I–I kind of bribed them.”

Will narrows his eyes. “Bribed them how?”

“I told them I was actually going on very important, secret business for the Crown.”

“So your father will kill you.”

“So will ours, so they cancel each other out,” Kayla says, sitting straighter. She pats on empty spot on the bed, freeing it by hugging her knees to her chest.

Nico’s eyes flicker to Will, as if asking for permission, and he nods eagerly. Nico sits on the edge of the bed, as stiff as a piece of wood. Will gets on his knees, crawling to his side with his pillow under the arm. Austin shoves him forward, making him bump his forehead against the wooden foot of the bed. In retaliation, Will hits him with the back of his foot.

“Gods, that’s not how you kick someone,” Nico says, and he sounds so outraged Will can’t help but laugh.

“Hitting my head didn’t hurt me by the way.”

“Your head is empty, why should it have?”

“You’re such an ass,” Will says. He wonders whether Nico understands what he means.

Will turns on his back, putting his head on Nico’s thigh, hugging his pillow to his chest. Nico’s fingers are always cold, but it’s pleasant now, as they play with Will’s curls. Once again, Will can’t help the smile on his face. A muscle in Nico’s jaw twitches as he suppresses his own smile.

“Tomorrow Jason will be here,” Will says.

“How sweet, one more person to kill me.” Nico raises an eyebrow, leaning back against the column of the bed. “We’ll need to organize a queue.”

Will groans. “I wish he wanted to kill you, he wants to kill _me_.”

“What happened with him?” Kayla asks, crossing her legs underneath herself. She’s wearing a nightgown; her legs bare underneath, and Nico must have noticed, because he refuses to stray his gaze from her face.

“He believes that it would be for the best, if we don’t get married again,” Will responds. “Or so he said at Annabeth and Prince Perseus’ wedding.”

“He tried to fry us,” Nico says. His lips tug downwards. His gaze turns murderous. He looks like a child who has just been told he can’t play with his favorite toy. “Reyna asked him if he considered himself a friend of us, and he left.”

“You should talk about it with him,” Will says. “He was upset.”

“So was I, after he tried to fry us.”

Will shakes his head. “Gods above, you are so dramatic. I swear.”

“I am dramatic?” Nico sits straighter, his cheeks dust in pink. “He tried to _fry_ us! Do I try to melt him in the shadows when he does his things with Piper?”

Will laughs, covering his mouth with his hand. Austin himself is biting a smile away, Kayla doesn’t try to hide her own amusement. It’s a scene that fills Will’s heart with warmth.

“I mean, he does say you are his younger brother. Wouldn’t you be annoyed if Hazel sneaked around with Frank?”

“They sneak around plenty, I believe. I just know they are getting married, and even if they weren’t, even if it did annoy me, which it doesn’t, it would be none of my business.”

Will narrows his eyes. “I didn’t think you would be so progressive. You are always so defensive of Hazel.”

Nico tugs at his hair harder, until he hisses. “You are defensive of Kayla, but why should it be your business if she sneaked around with people, so long as she doesn’t hurt herself or others?”

“Say it louder for when I want to start a courtship!” Kayla exclaims, clapping her hands in delight.

Will pats the mole under Nico’s chin. He didn’t think his siblings and Nico would present a united front against him. “You are so smug, it’s unbelievable. Anyway, I heard Sherman is serving far from the capital now. Somewhere closer to the border of Tartarus.”

Nico blushes a deep red. “It wasn’t my idea. He asked for it.”

“By asking for my hand?” Will bites his cheek. A part of him is amused, especially with Nico’s reaction, the other is screaming that he has exiled his childhood friend to the worst type of countryside one could ever think of, a land of death and desperation.

“He literally sent my father a letter–by the way, never send my father a letter, he usually ignores them, I found it and read it–in which he asked to be given the possibility of defending the kingdoms by reinforcing the borders of Tartarus. I still have it.”

“It wasn’t even given to you and you kept it?” Will asks, and he can’t keep the laughs in anymore. “You just the steal the letters of the King and keep them? Isn’t that treason?”

Nico smiles, and he’s so beautiful Will desires his siblings weren’t here, so he could kiss him. “I read it more times than I’m proud to admit.” He stretches his arms above his head, resembling a cat under the sun. “It’s an absolute win.”

Will pinches the soft skin of his neck. “Don’t be an ass.”

“He chose to go there.”

“And I’m sure you tried to stop him.”

“I did, I made sure he’d have the worst horse, so maybe he’d change his mind. I used a sneaky tactic.”

“You’re terrible.”

Nico’s head shots up, like he’s just remembered about Will’s siblings. Truth be told, Will himself has forgotten about them for a while. Kayla doesn’t seem to mind, with her chin on her knee and the expression of someone

“I almost forgot,” he says, his voice half-back to his Prince voice, the one he uses when the crown is on his head, as if he’s also forgotten that Will is laying on his lap, and the change of voice alone can dignify them. “The Queen has sent gifts for you. Your other siblings, too.”

Will pouts. “And me? We have a correspondence; I can’t believe she wouldn’t send me a gift.”

Nico blinks. “Am I not gift enough for you?”

“Gifts aren’t sent back, is this a way of telling me to keep you here?”

He knows Nico can’t tell him it is, that it would only happen in a dream, and it is too good to be true. He still can’t help the hope building up in his chest.

Nico’s touch turns even gentler. “She sent you a–”

“Don’t ruin the surprise!” Austin exclaims.

“It’s bad luck,” Kayla adds.

Will smiles softly, and nods. “Us southerns have traditions, too, Nico.”

“Alright then, but if disappointment shows on any of your faces, I’m not responding for the Queen’s actions when she hears of it.”

The sky is dark when they are finally left alone. As soon as the doors close behind his siblings, Will turns and kisses Nico slowly and deeply. In the Lands of Dreams they can kiss all they want, although it’s a bit strange since they have an appearance, but no physical body. And up until now they haven’t had a minute alone. Only during the horse ride to the Palace of Gold were they able to talk somewhat privately.

“I missed you,” Will says.

“I know.” Nico pats Will’s hair, trying to dignify him again somehow. “I missed you, too.”

Will wraps his arms around Nico’s shoulders, before letting himself fall back on the mattress like a dead body. When Nico’s elbow sticks in his ribs, he groans loudly. “I can’t believe they’re really giving us chaperones.” 

“My father was pretty adamant about it,” Nico says. He rolls off Will, bringing their intertwined hands on his chest.

“Was is true?” Will asks. “What Reyna said earlier, about how the lords aren’t happy with our and Hazel’s marriages.”

Nico stiffens, if only for a moment. He hopes Will hasn’t felt it. “It was.”

Will’s eyes are always innocent and open; they break Nico’s heart a bit. “Why haven’t you told me?”

Nico kisses the back of Will’s hand. “I didn’t want you to worry. I don’t care what they say. You and I, we’re not any of their business.”

“We should just run away and get married. What can they do if it has already happened?” Will’s gaze turns mischievous. “Annul it?”

Nico chuckles. “Not if we consummate.”

Will rolls over him, and kisses him. “I would do it just to spite them. Not like I want it.”

Nico’s smile turns softer around the edges. “Of course.” He reciprocates the kiss.

Nico’s plan was simple. Bribe the guards (done); travel through the shadows to Will’s room (also done); leave before dawn (hard since he always slept soundly, but it could be done, too).

He is in for a rude awakening. Quite literally, since when dawn comes, the doors of Will’s rooms are yanked open, and two guards step inside.

“Your Highness. Lord William.”

Nico is frozen on the spot. Will, who previously had his head on Nico’s chest, is just as unresponsive. He keeps his widened eyes on Nico, as though believing that, if he doesn’t turn, it will all disappear and they’ll go back to sleeping.

“Lady Reyna waits for you in your chambers, Your Highness,” the male guard says. The other, a woman, looks fairly amused by the scene.

Nico sits, Will finally rolls off him. Nico puts on the clothes he was wearing the previous night, a knot tightening in his chest. He should fire those guards for treason. Shadows melt off the walls, and Nico summons the force to walk away from a quiet morning with Will, something he has longed for in the past few months. Will’s hair is a halo on the cushions, and Nico turns to look at the guards. When the woman, Angelica, nods, he lets them all fall through the shadows.

Reyna is sitting on the windowsill, with her feet firmly planted to the ground. Her face is blank, which isn’t as good as Nico would like to believe. He exhales a long breath, sitting on the chair prepared in front of Reyna. The doors close behind the guards; it’s so silent their fading footsteps can be heard through the thick walls.

“I hope it was worth it,” Reyna says. “Because you will never have a second alone with him if I can help it.”

“We haven’t seen each other for–”

“If you had told me you wanted to see him, I would have helped you, making sure no one could track your movements. You better hope Lord Apollo won’t discover you, or you’ll be in big, big troubles.”

“Isn’t it kind of hypocrite of him, isn’t it? Aren’t we partying the birth of his and his lover’s child, right under his wife’s roof?”

Reyna looks around, as though afraid someone has heard him. “Don’t say these things in his house,” she hisses.

“What Will and I do is none of his business, so he can stick his–”

“Will is his son, or have you forgotten? It’s his business as much as it is your father’s, who–”

“It’s none of my father’s business either.”

Reyna stands, throwing her hands in the air. She has looked so distraught in years. “He gave me orders, Nico! You know how they talk of Will, why would you expose him to such a risk?”

Nico blinks. Reyna keeps on talking, but he can’t listen anymore. What do they say of Will? He doesn’t understand. He’s kind, gentle. People say that Nico has ruined him, probably mistreated him, and that’s why the Priestesses and the Council have accepted the annulment. People don’t know it was Nico’s idea to begin with, even less that when he did it he thought he was helping–saving–Will.

“How–” Nico interrupts her, as she’s ranting on and on about his father and his own duties and what it means to be Crown Prince. “How do they talk of Will?”

Reyna stops, tilting her head to the side. Blood leaves her face, making her pale and surprised. “Oh. You don’t know.”

Nico shakes his head. Behind Reyna, the sky is turning pink. The sun will be up shortly. There is a saying in the eastern lands of Aita, that a secret is such only if it starts under the sun. When it comes during the night, it is no secret at all, for nothing is seen during the night anyway.

“Tell me.” Nico grips the armrests of his chair. “Tell me what they say of Will.”

Reyna sighs. “Some call him your concubine. Think that’s what he is, what you’ll bring him back to be. They say you won’t actually marry him again. Or that he’s–that he was so good at Prince Perseus’ wedding he convinced you to keep him.”

“I want the names of those who say these things.” The shadows on the ground grow bigger, rolling toward Nico like rainy clouds during the Autumn. The stop under his chair, and grow around it, until it resembles more the throne of Aita than a chair in Delphi. “I want to know who it is.”

“As you wish, Your Highness. I’ll make sure you have them by the time we are back in the capital.”

“Thank you.”

In the days preceding the celebration of Percy and Annabeth’s wedding, in Nepthun, Nico stood with Reyna and Jason as he watched Will arrive to the Palace of Waves. If he closes his eyes, he can still remember the taste of sea in the air. Now, he stands with Reyna as Will greets Jason by the doors of the Palace of Gold.

“You needn’t call your shadows, Your Highness,” Reyna says, talking slowly and quietly, her lips barely move. “Prince Jason is no threat.”

“You wouldn’t say the same if he’d tried to fry _you_ ,” Nico responds in the same way. He lets go of his shadows, if only because Will would have his head if he realized.

In the rational part of his mind, he knows Jason is a friend, even if they haven’t left things well. His powers don’t care about that, though. They only see a man who has tried –or threatened– to hurt Will, now standing close to him.

“We’re going to say hello,” Reyna says. She sneaks her arm in Nico’s, forcing him to step forward. “Come, Your Highness.”

“Absolutely not.” Nico tries to free himself, but Reyna has always been too strong for him. “Lady Reyna, this is going on the report.”

Reyna smiles, in way she didn’t before learning the ways of the court. “Next to your night adventures, Your Highness?”

Using his surprise to her own advantage, Reyna manages to drag him forward. He stumbles on his steps, almost falls forward on his face. Jason turns, and their eyes meet. There’s no hostility in those eyes. In fact, there’s a nothing so big it comes to be everything.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Your Highness,” Reyna says, breaking the ice.

“Likewise, my lady.” Jason’s eyes stick to Nico’s face, as though he has forgotten what it is like. “Your Highness.”

Nico tries to give him a smile, and mirrors the little head bow. The sun is beating in his eyes, so if he’s grimacing that’s to blame. “Prince Jason.”

Jason has been by his side for so long, sometimes he forgets it. No one would have bet on their friendship, especially Nico. Until a few years back he though Jason would leave, he was so insecure about himself and the world around him. He thought that the Council would hate him forever, and one day his so-called friends would wake up, and realize that maybe they were better off without him. People always left him, anyway.

And now it has actually happened.

Nico swallows, but his throat is too dry, and he ends up stifling a cough. He turns on his heels, and walks away. His guards are quick to follow him. Leaving him upset and alone is a dare they aren’t willing to take.

Will leans against the cool marble column. Nico is always beautiful, but he is even more now, sitting on the railing, with blooming flowers all around him, the sun hitting him in all the right spots. Will wishes he had paper and a pencil, so he could draw him, but even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to look away long enough to make more than a sketch.

“I saw you storming off earlier,” Will says.

Nico looks back at him, surprise written on his every feature. He takes his feet off the railing, and Will sits on the empty spot.

“So, want to tell me what it was about?” Will asks.

“I was just thinking.” Nico shrugs, keeping his gaze on the buds growing amongst the thorns. “I needed some time alone.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“Stay.”

Nico takes Will’s hand, playing with his fingers. Will tries not to smile too much. They stay in silence. Through their friendship first and their encounters in the Land of Dreams, Will has learnt that, sometimes, Nico needs his space to process things. He’s willing to stay silent as long as it takes, he has no intention of rushing him. He waits for Nico to talk and, eventually, he does. Maybe only a few minutes have passed, or maybe it’s been a whole eternity. Waiting for Nico is always worth it in the end.

“Are you free in the afternoon?” He asks, fidgeting with the family ring on Will’s finger.

“I kept my schedule clear for you. Even my father couldn’t oppose to me spending time with my fiancé. Do you have something in mind?”

“Not really. I just–I wanted to spend some time together.”

Will could combust. “I would love that. Have you ever been to the market before?”

Nico’s eyes widen. It’s answer enough for Will.


	3. even the gods envied you

“Clovis?”

“Prince Nico,” the boy responds, raising a gloved hand to his mouth, a yawn badly hidden behind it, as he nods his head.

Will’s eyes dart between Nico and the boy, Clovis, time and time again. He has never seen this boy before, but there’s something familiar about him. Maybe they met in the castle, but he can’t remember. Truth be said, he didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings for the first few months. So now, that he is side by side with Nico, his hand in the crook of Nico’s elbow, he keeps a cordial smile on his face, acting like he isn’t weirded out in the slightest by the familiarity Clovis seems to have with Nico.

Nico clears his throat. “Clovis, meet my fiancé, Lord William. You may remember each other, as you both attended Camp Half-Blood during the war.”

Only now that Nico says it, Will can almost recognize Clovis. His pale blue eyes, and even paler blond hair are somewhat familiar. He doesn’t spend much time under the sun, and that much is clear. He has an Aitaean accent, not the same as Nico’s, though.

Clovis nods at Will. “Hi.”

Oh. Oh. Will turns to Nico, but he just shrugs. _He’s like that_ , his fond expression seems to say. Oh.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Will tries. His smile doesn’t even waver.

Clovis nods again, but his attention quickly turns back to Nico, and he looks at him with a dreaming gaze. “I didn’t know you’d left the capital, Nico.”

 _Nico?_ So they are close? Is he Nico’s friend? Maybe he just doesn’t understand court etiquette. Maybe he’s some guard’s son, or a stable boy. Of course it doesn’t explain what he’s doing in Delphi, of all places.

“I told you I was leaving,” Nico says, a smile blooming on his face. If Will is shortly distracted from the brightness it brings, no one can blame him, can they? “What are _you_ doing here?”

Clovis looks at the busy streets, eyeing the stand beside him with hand-made jewelry with interest. “Some lord had a daughter and wanted to bless her sleep.”

Nico’s smile widens. “May that lord be Lord Apollo?” Clovis nods, and Nico nudges Will forward. “Lord William is his son.”

Clovis narrows his eyes. “So that’s why he’s so pretty. Weren’t you married to his brother?”

Nico’s cheeks turn red, as Will feels his own doing. “I was married to Lord William.”

Clovis scratches his neck, his eyes narrowing even more. “Oh. Oh, I see.” His eyelids drop, as though a spell has been casted upon him, and he falls like a dead body. One of Nico’s guards manages to catch him before he touches the ground.

Nico just rolls his eyes. “I always tell him to use a wheelchair. He’ll break his head someday.” He pats the hand Will has on arm, walking again as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “Come, Lord William. Angelica will bring him to the Palace in the meantime.”

“Who even was he?” Will asks, as they walk through the stands. “I don’t remember much of him from Camp.”

Nico turns his face away, admiring a stand of jewelry. He can’t actually be interested in it, considering that the crown on his head is worth more than the stands fitting in the street put together. “Oh, he’s just the son of a lord of Aita.”

“What blessing is he giving my sister?”

Nico frowns. “Sleeping blessings. He just said so. Are you alright? You seem distressed.”

“Yes, _yes_ , but what does that mean?” Will’s frown is a perfect match to Nico’s. “I didn’t know sleeping blessings existed. What if she doesn’t wake up?”

“How am _I_ supposed to know?”

“He’s your lord!”

“Do you know all the powers of the _sons_ of your father’s vassals?”

Will bites his cheek, looking away. Nico doesn’t want to meet his eyes, anyway. “I don’t, but since you seem familiar with him I thought you would.”

“Of course I am, he lives in the Royal Palace in Caere. His rooms are close to ours.”

For a moment, Will is so giddy and alight with the way Nico said ‘ours’, that he doesn’t realize what the rest is. But when he does, Nico is already pointing at a stand where snacks are sold, and he’s dragging Will to it, so he just lets it go.

“What you mean to tell me,” Nico says, studying the rabbits in the wooden cages with his chin propped on his fist. “Is that people can just come here and buy an animal they intend to kill? What _is_ the point?”

“I believe the point would be killing it, Your Highness,” Will says. “And then eat it.”

“Then why not buy it already dead?”

“It would cost more, Your Highness.”

Nico looks so crestfallen, Will has to stifle a laugh. “Gods above, being poor must be a hassle.”

Will hums, leading Nico away when he notices many people watching them, especially the crown on Nico’s head. From afar, they are probably wondering whether he’s Percy or Nico. Many seem to get confused, since what is known of them is that they are princes and have dark hair.

“Have you really never come to the market?” Will asks.

“Once, in Venice, when my mother was still alive. I was three, or four, I think.”

“Only once? I used to come here at least once a week with Michael and Lee.”

Nico shrugs, running his fingertip over a piece of cloth in exposition. If the way his lips curl is any indication, he isn’t satisfied with it. “I didn’t like it much when I was younger. It–all the noises, they disturbed me. My powers slipped, and they killed all the flowers of one of the stands.” Nico grimaces. “I think I scared to death a little girl.”

“Today is your lucky day, then!” Will exclaims, letting his hand drop from Nico’s elbow to intertwine their fingers and swing their hands. The corner of Nico’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile. “We should go to the section with the things for art. Hazel wrote me that she was looking for some colors, and there should be some. I wanted to send them to her as a surprise, but I guess you’ll have to give them to her yourself. Also, there’s this woman who sells seeds, and you should totally gift some to the Queen.”

In the morning, breakfast is served in the Great Hall. The eastern walls are occupied by floor-to-ceiling windows. As is usual in the South, the celebrations will last three days. Yesterday, when everyone arrived, and in the night the story of Hyacinthus and Apollo’s love was sung during dinner. Tonight a masquerade ball will be hosted, which for some reason has Kayla high on her own nerves. She says it’s just because tonight their sister’s name will be decided by her fathers, but Will doesn’t quite believe it. Lastly, tomorrow morning, a Priestess will come and bless the little girl, whose name will be publicly announced, and lanterns with wishes will be released, the only lights in the night sky. The day after, in the morning, everyone will leave. Except for Nico, who is staying one more week. Will has to suppress a smile every time he thinks about it.

Will is so lost in his thoughts about the day, he can almost let the present slip through his fingers. Key word almost, because they are at the High Table, Nico is sitting in front of him, next to his father, Jason on the other side. It’s awkward to say the least.

“Prince Jason and Prince Nico don’t actually look murderous with each other,” Kayla whispers in his ear, and her insistence in this telling of the present is the other thing keeping Will anchored to reality. “They look more like dad and his lovers after they break it off for the fourth time. A bit…” She scrunched her pretty nose, thinking hard. “ _Awkward_.”

Will shoves her away, heat rising to his cheeks. “Shut _up_.” Nico’s eyes are on him, as many other, but those aren’t as heavy and welcome as his. The heat just increases. Will looks away first.

“Your Highness, how is your sister if I may ask?” Lady Reyna asks Prince Jason.

Nico, sitting next to her, sends her a mortal glare. She doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He must realize it, too, as he sticks his tongue in his cheek and lowers his gaze to his plate. He munches over smashes potatoes with as much dignity as he can muster.

“She’s doing fine, my lady,” he responds with a teasing smile. “As I’m sure you know, since I saw your letters reaching her myself.” His eyes flicker to Nico, but he’s looking at Will again, and his expression has turned somewhat softer. Jason clears his throat. “I saw that Her Highness Princess Hazel has written to her as well. I didn’t know they were friends.”

Nico doesn’t take his eyes off Will, responding automatically. “They aren’t.”

Reyna’s grip on the fork tightens, and Will is sure he isn’t imagining the way Nico flinches. This time, when he sends her a glare, she returns it whole heartedly. Breakfast with them when they are cranky makes Will feel at home.

“I think they are,” Jason responds.

Nico bites his cheek, consequently making his jaw stick out even more, distracting Will once more. His words, however, are a very cold shower. “I think you are not king yet, and not everything you say is truth and undebatable.”

“If I raise my eyes from the plate, and I see the ghost of a spark or of a melted shadow, may the Gods help me, I _will_ send a letter to your fathers.” Reyna’s tone is light as she speaks without missing a beat.

That shuts down the issue for the time being, and breakfast proceeds.

Will’s soft chuckles interrupt Nico’s rant, and he looks back at him with raised eyebrows, the same expression of an affronted knight, who is about to throw their glove at their opponent.

“Are you laughing at me?” Nico asks. He crosses his arms on his chest, leaning back in the comfortable armchair of the library, watching as Will picks some books for his studies.

Nico is wearing a typically southern, white, loosely fitting shirt–not exactly his family’s typical fashion–that leaves his collarbones uncovered. It’s a nice contrast to his dark hair, and the even darker scowl on his face. After midday, the temperature has grown too hot for him to keep his Aitaean clothes. It’s a nice change, Will must admit. These clothes fit him.

He tilts his head to the side, clearly waiting for the answer to a question Will can’t remember.

“What were you saying again?” Will asks, setting the books down to sit in the chair adjacent to Nico’s. He takes Nico’s hand in his to play with his fingers.

“Oh, he was just enraged at His Highness Prince Jason and his obtuse personality, or so it seems,” Reyna chirps in from the corner of the room. She is standing next to the window, looking down at the life in the castle square, the sun kissing her gently. Now that they are alone, with only the guards as audience, she seems amused by Jason and Nico’s newfound rivalry.

“Don’t you think it would be better to make amends instead of holding onto your anger?” Will asks, placing his and Nico’s hand in his lap.

Nico is wearing two rings, one is his family ring, with the serpent and the pomegranate, the other a gift from his late sister Bianca, a simple silver band with an incision in dialect. Will always forgets to ask for a translation, but then again if Nico wanted to share, he could just tell him.

“Of course I do,” Nico says, as though it’s the same thing he’s been repeating for the past few hours, not the complete opposite. He shrugs with one shoulder, crossing his long legs. “Which is why Jason should ask for my forgiveness. He’s in the wrong, after all.”

“He reacted bad,” Will says, trying–and failing–not to get distracted by Nico’s legs. “But it would be silly to throw away such a long friendship for a few ill words. Only for pride.”

“It’s not pride,” Nico snaps. His hand slips from Will’s, and he has to suppress a sigh. Nico crosses his arms back on his chest.

“Are you not offended that he didn’t trust your judgment?” Will asks.

“I’m offended that for days he kept going on and on about how I should have talked to you and when I did, he just turned his back on me, saying it wasn’t what he meant.”

“Do you maybe feel betrayed, then?” Reyna asks. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Nico’s arms loosen, until his hands fall in his lap. “I–maybe?” He looks so lost, Will wants to scoop him up in his arms and not letting him go. He wishes he were half as good as Reyna at reading Nico’s emotions. “He just always said he’d respect my choices as prince.”

“Is being with Lord William a choice you made as Prince of Aita?”

“Can I really differentiate? I’m both, at all times. I am Prince and I am Nico, and these two parts of me can be different in what they need. But also, they are too deeply intertwined for me to completely ignore one in favor of the other. I made the choice of being with Will both as Prince and as Nico.” Nico licks his lips, eyes trained on the floor. His cheekbones are dusted in red and pink. “But I also think that the part of me he has betrayed is Nico. If Aita were in danger, he would still come for our aid.”

“Maybe it’s time to ask him if he’d still come to _your_ aid, as Jason that helps Nico, without titles and crowns.” Reyna plays with the end of her braid, tightening the wrapper and loosening it again. She looks down the windows one last time, before her gaze meets Will’s. “As Lord William said, Your Highness, I think it would be unwise to throw away your friendship with Prince Jason. After all, you’ll be working together in the future. Peace never lasts forever.”

Nico nods, then his eyes train on Will, too. Determination shines in his eyes. “Will, I–”

Before he can end his sentence, the female guard, Angelica, knocks twice on the door. Nico immediately straightens, his gaze turning piercing and attentive. The two parts of him may be intertwined, but the change between Nico and Prince Nicholas is immediate, it resembles an actor putting on a mask before going on stage.

“Your Highness, Lord William, Lady Reyna.” She bows to ninety degrees, looking at Nico. “A message has arrived from Lord Clovis. He asks for you to meet him.”

Will’s stomach sinks a bit, he tries to suppress the disappointment. Nico stands, face carefully blank, but Will thinks he isn’t imagining the way his eyes turn softer when they set on him.

“With your permission, Lord William,” he says. He throws a gaze to Angelica, and when he sees that she isn’t looking, he kisses Will’s temple. His next words are whispered. “See you later, my love.”

Nico takes his leave after stopping by Reyna, to whisper something to her ear. He must have told her to remain, because she doesn’t follow him out.

“His Highness Prince Nico was telling me that your studies are going well, Lord William,” she says, sitting where Nico was. She leans back in the armchair, and it’s such a familiar sight to Will, used to seeing her like this in Aita, that a pang of pain shoots through his heart.

Will manages a smile. “They are, my lady. Master Chiron thinks I may be graduating early.”

“Oh, that’s very good to hear.” A genuine smile marries her features, as she tilts her head to the side. “And after your studies, do you intend on coming back to Caere?”

Will’s foot bounces on and off the ground. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose my presence to the Palace, but that is the intention, yes.”

“You are dearly missed, Lord William. You won’t be imposing.”

Will’s shoulders sag in relief. “That’s good to hear, my lady. How is your work going, if I may ask? Are you still working on stopping the laws against witches?”

“I am, with the Prince’s help of course.” A dark shadow passes on her face, a stark contrast to the way the sun brightens it. “I should thank you for last year, when you talked about Lady Lou Ellen with the Prince. I didn’t think he’d come around early enough to stop the Council.”

“I just told him the truth,” Will says. “He’s kind, but I think he’s so clever, he forgets it sometimes.”

“Since he came to court as a child, he’s been told that you should never have mercy for those who are, or can be, a threat.” She looks down at her hands in her lap, stretching her fingers. “Sometimes I miss Lady Maria for him, you know?”

“I do. Never having mercy is not something I agree with,” Will immediately says. He looks around, but they are alone in the library. No one can hear them now. “Can I ask you something, my lady?” Reyna nods, leaning forward, and Will speaks in a quieter voice. “Nico and I will have children one day. I’m not saying that I don’t want them to be raised in the court, as I don’t want to be apart from them, nor them from one of their fathers, if I were to move with them. I’m just wondering how much of an impact the Council will have on their education. Teaching them that they should never give mercy to anyone, knowing that one day one of them is going to be responsible for a whole kingdom, is not something I’m keen on doing. I love Nico, I really do, but I want to spare my children the pain the Council has given him.”

Reyna speaks even quieter. They are so close her breath brushes his skin. “As you well know, Nico isn’t the most loved. The Council would have preferred if late Princess Bianca had taken the throne. They can’t change the events that led to her death, of course. They’ll surely try to get into your children’s head, and sometimes they will. I don’t know much about raising children, especially being the younger sister myself. However, I’d like to think that if a kid is shown both the good and the bad of a certain situation, witches and their powers to make an example, then they’ll be able to make better choices about such matter when they are adults. Raising the Royal Children won’t be easy, Lord William. Every choice you and Prince Nico make, will be harshly criticized. And your kids may not be the happiest. Princes and princesses rarely are.”

Will swallows the lump in his throat. Those first months in Aita, with Nico so close and yet so distant, play in his memory like a sad melody from a faraway time. “I know.”

“But you’ll also have allies. The Royal Family, they love you, Lord William, you know? The Queen never stops asking about you, and even His Majesty the King bugs Prince Nico on _when_ you’ll come back. I don’t there’s even a need to say it, but Her Highness the Princess misses you dearly. Your family, here. Although far, we both know Lord Apollo would come to your aid anytime. And anytime you need me, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.” Will looks away for a moment, before grimacing, the tension lifts from his shoulders. “Actually, I should talk to my father. He’s becoming unbearable.”

“I must admit, my lord, it is a quite funny situation at times.”

Prince Jason is sitting with Austin in the gardens, as Kayla, just behind them, makes flower-crowns with the flowers Jonathan picks for her. Chiron watches it all unfold from the shade of a nearby tree, with a little smile on his aging face. Percy and Annabeth are there, too, sitting beside Chiron. Annabeth is showing him her brand-new dagger, the tilt decorated with several gems. They must have arrived when Will was in the library.

Will sends Kayla a death glare, she’s the one who called for him to come here, and truth be told, being with someone who probably blames him for the (hopefully temporary) end of his friendship with Nico, right next to the ones whose wedding was overshadowed by his own marriage drama, can be a bit uncomfortable.

Kayla squirms a little.

“Look, Will!” Jonathan exclaims, and in the exact moment he stands, Will knows he’ll say something that will make him want to bury himself. “Kayla says you’ll hate being here and it will leave you a terrible memory of your siblings.” He smiles broadly, as he usually does when he repeats their father’s poems by memory alone. “Austin says you’re better than dad after he got a–”

Kayla throws her flower-crowns aside, putting her hand on Jonathan’s mouth. Her face is the same color as her hair.

“Lord Jonathan,” Chiron says, his tone laced with warning.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t just tell my secrets out-loud?” Kayla exclaims, but Jonathan only shrugs. With the crinkles by his eyes, it’s clear that he’s smiling under her hand. “Gods, I should know better by now than–”

“Kayla,” Chiron calls her, and her blush deepens. “You and Austin both know better than to enter the difficult business that is William’s marriage.”

“I was _not_ a part of this plot,” Austin says, in a way that makes it clear that he was, in fact, a part of this plot.

Kayla huffs. “Isn’t the problem that even Will isn’t in his difficult marriage’s business anymore?”

“Aren’t you just the sweetest?” Will asks, ruffling her hair. “Daphne was looking for you, by the way.”

Kayla rolls her eyes, smacking his hand away. She is sixteen now, and easily and often offended. She is taking to be as dramatic as their father, with a temper that rivals his. Jonathan, barely eight years old, is the only one she’s able to stand for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Will wishes he knew what is going on in that head of hers.

She wants to start a courtship, but also to not talk to–nor about–any person near her age. Maybe she’s been conditioned by seeing Will’s early courtship, and now thinks that she’s getting too old too fast. Maybe it’s a good thing for her to be seeing Annabeth and Percy, who married for love and when they were older than Will and Nico.

“What is up with her?” Will later asks Chiron, after she has left, and Percy and Jason are shrugging off part of their clothing to start an ‘amicable’ spar. Will hopes they don’t ruin Daphne’s gardens.

“You were just as annoying when you were her age,” Austin says, snorting through his nose.

“Behave,” Chiron whispers, but Austin just smiles in a saccharine way.

“Shut up,” Will says instead. “You are, like, five.”

“Five times the man you’ll ever be.”

Will furrows his eyebrows. What is up with his siblings? Maybe it would be good if they studied abroad for some time, they are starting to resemble their father and his dramatics a bit too much. Will should suggest it to Master Chiron.

Before he can do it, however, a wave of water hits them. Annabeth is quick to call Percy ‘Seaweed-Brain’, but Chiron just sighs with a fond look. Since having his brothers sick for the night won’t be much help, Will forces them to go change their clothes. He leaves Percy and Jason to their antics.

Even with the mask on, it isn’t hard at all to recognize Nico. Maybe it’s just that Will feels himself drawn to him, in the way their powers react to one another’s, and their every breath feels shared when they are together. So Will recognizes him, in the dark blue suit he’s wearing, with golden embroidery that makes him look like the night-sky come to life. Instead of a crown, a delicate golden forehead tiara is sitting on his dark hair.

When their eyes meet from across the room, Will’s breath is caught in his throat. Nico’s face changes so suddenly, turning soft and just full of adoration. Never in his wildest dreams, would Will have thought that someday Nico would look at him like that.

“He was going mad last time we were all at a masquerade ball together.”

Will startles, looking at the man next to him. So close, Prince Jason’s blue eyes are piercing and unmistakable. Will bows his head, but Jason waves his hand in dismissal.

“I regret having us use formalities now,” Jason says. “But I believe it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

Will shakes his head, his healer’s nature coming forth. “We are both at fault.”

Jason’s eyes roam across the room, until they find Nico again, dancing with a girl, whose golden curls are familiar. Annabeth. Little bubbles of water appear between the dancing pair every time they get too close.

Jason snorts. “I swear, Percy is so childish.” He tilts his head to the side, and for a moment his smile turns regretful. “As if Nico could ever look at anyone but you.”

Will can’t help a smile. “I know.” A part of him–small, really–wishes he recognized Clovis, to bring Jason’s words to him, too.

Jason nods. He looks like he’s about to say something personal, but then his face closes off, and he calls a nearby servant to him, leaving the half-full glass in his hands on her trail. When he turns to Will, his face is far more closed off than mere seconds ago. “Dance with me, Lord William?”

It’s not like Will has a choice when it’s a prince asking him, especially since it’s _his_ prince. His Crown Prince. So he leaves his glass, too, and takes Jason’s outstretched hand with a polite smile and a nod.

They twirl around one another, in a dance Will has been learning since he was a child. He can feel many eyes on them. He’s Lord Apollo’s eldest son now, and both Prince Nico’s ex-husband and fiancé. Such an oxymoron. Looking over Jason’s shoulder, he meets Nico’s eyes. Once again, his breath is caught in his throat, and he takes a false step.

“Aish Lord William,” Percy says, passing by Jason and Will with Austin in his arms. “Save some _Crown_ Princes for the rest of us.”

“It’s the eyes,” Austin suggests with a sly smile, which Will doesn’t like at all. “That’s why they _all_ fall for him. Be careful not to introduce him to your older brother, Your Highness.”

Once they are alone–as alone as they can be between the other dancing couples–Jason speaks. It’s so sudden Will almost jumps out of his skin.

“I’m not the best at apologizing. I don’t really know how to do it.”

“You have nothing to apologize for to me,” Will says. “I understand why you said those things. Even if they hurt.”

“I should still apologize.”

“Apologize to Nico, you were closer to him than you’ve ever been to me.”

Jason’s breath smells of the champagne he’s had earlier. “He would never accept my excuses if I didn’t come to you first.”

Heat raises to Will’s cheeks, but would it be the truth, if he said Jason was wrong? “You are important to him. Even if you aren’t on talking terms now.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, it’s just my hobby, you know?” Will smiles. “Keeping princes humble, that is. Wouldn’t want your heads to get too big for your crowns.”

Jason chuckles. “For political reasons I’ll be invited to your wedding. I hope we’ll be friends again by then.”

The song changes, and he steps back. The musicians are already starting another, and Will is happy to know they are playing an Aitaean song. It would be foolish of his father, after all, to not play any Aitaean song with the prince dancing with his son.

“I’ll go find Nico for this one,” Will says. “With your permission.”

He only has to turn to find Nico, already behind him. The music is fine, but the sound of the giggle Nico releases under his breath is much better. Will won’t say it out loud, Nico would just get offended on behalf of Aitaean culture.

For the whole dance, Will whispers Nico the titles of all the songs he wants to be played at their wedding. If Nico’s smile is anything to go by, he’ll be happy to hear them, too.

Later, Nico dances with Kayla and Austin, even Jonathan for some time, before the kid grows tired and leaves Nico in the middle of the dance floor with a confused expression, that leads Will to think that Apollo has gotten Jonathan to offend him, somehow. He also sees Nico dancing with Daphne, and when they are back together, there’s a deep blush on his neck.

“I have half a mind that they asked you something strange, Your Highness,” Will says, and Nico offers him his hand.

“My, Lord William, I didn’t remember you to be so suspicious.”

Will takes his hand.

They pass by Kayla and another girl, whom Will doesn’t recognize. His eyes stay glued to them, until Nico nudges his foot, and makes him miss a step. When he looks up, he finds Nico laughing at his expression.

“Do you feel ignored, Your Highness?” Will asks, stepping closer without missing a step. He’s a good dancer, when he isn’t sabotaged by his partner. Oh, or when people don’t speak suddenly. “May it be, that you only want my eyes on you?”

“Don’t call me greedy, Lord William,” Nico says. “Some would consider it treason.”

Will laughs. “As if I would ever betray you.”

“You wouldn’t, right?”

“I mean, maybe for a prince I don’t have to get on my tiptoes to kiss.”

His laugh quickly dies down when he notices how stiff Nico has turned in his arms. Will nudges him. “I wasn’t serious, you know?”

Nico looks like he’s gotten out of a trance. He blinks at Will, but his eyes quickly shift back to something behind his shoulder. What is he looking at? Which dancing pair has caught his eyes? Will doesn’t recognize anyone that could catch the interest of the Prince of Aita.

“What are you looking at?” He finally asks.

Nico snaps out of his trance. “Nothing,” he says quickly. He intertwines his hand to Will’s. “Can we get out of here for a bit?”

Will nods. It isn’t strange to see couples leaving balls early, but Nico is Prince and Will is the host’s eldest son. They shouldn’t be doing this. They sneak out separately, and meet again in the desert hallway. When Will sits on the windowsill, it’s still warm, despite it being a few hours since the sun has gone down.

Nico is brushing Will’s hair away from his face, sitting beside him, when someone clears their throat, and they turn to see Reyna. Her lips are painted red, and in typical Nepthunian fashion she has her hair styled in many braids, with colorful pearls and corals.

“Your Highness,” she says, her eyebrow raising behind the mask. “Lord William.”

“Evening, Lady Reyna,” Nico says. He puts his hands beside himself on the marble, drumming his fingertips. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I would be, if I didn’t have to follow you and your fiancé out here, Your Highness.” She puts her hands on her hips, and she looks so much like a mother scolding her children, that chills run down Will’s spine. “Shall I remind you of the little chat we had yesterday, Your Highness?”

Nico’s fingers stop. He avoids Will’s eyes. “No.”

“Then maybe we could retire for the night,” she continues. “Let Lord William go back to enjoying himself, if he wants to.”

Will looks back at Nico. He really doesn’t want to, he also doesn’t want to separate so soon. Who knows when they’ll see each other again!

“Can we go to the gardens first?” Will blurts out. “Take a walk. With the guards and everything.”

Reyna opens her mouth, and Will can’t see her face, but can she really tell him no? After all, he’s in his own home. Nico is the Prince, but this isn’t his kingdom. Reyna has no reason to refuse him. She knows it too, and Will can almost hear the affirmative words, but then Nico speaks.

“I don’t think it would be proper and safe at this time of the night, Lord William.” Before Will can even realize what he’s just heard, Nico leans forward to kiss his cheek, their mask bumping awkwardly. His next words are only a breath against Will’s skin. “Good night, Will.”

“And then he just fucking disappears!” Will exclaims, crossing his arms on the chest.

“He shadow-traveled away from you?” Austin asks. “In the middle of the hall?”

“That’s not very chivalrous of him!” Kayla says. She turns on her side, looking down at Will, throwing the blankets off herself.

The night sky is already turning pink, and Will wishes he had the strength and energy to move from the bed to close the curtains. However, he’ll just remain safely tugged in his silky blankets, half-hoping Austin or Kayla will tire of the light, and do it themselves.

“He didn’t shadow-travel,” Will concedes. “He just…walked really fast.”

“He walked really fast,” Kayla repeats. “And you stayed there like a statue, and watched him go.”

“I want to sleep now,” Will says, groaning in his pillow as Austin starts laughing. A few years abroad would really do him some good. “It’s just–I really wanted to go to the gardens together.”

“You can do it before breakfast,” Kayla says. “You know, the celebrations aren’t over yet.”

“And you clearly didn’t want to go to the gardens to have a calm walk.” Austin, on Will’s other side, props on his elbows, his next words slurred by a yawn. How lucky would Will be, were they slurred enough to be incomprehensible. “You maybe wanted some privacy. Like the first night he was here.”

Will tries to cover his face with his blanket, but Kayla grips it. Austin brings his face right in front of Will’s, wiggling his eyebrows.

“What did you do when he was here?” She asks, snuggling closer.

“Mind your own business.”

Austin sighs. “It would be a shame if dad knew of your nightly escapades, though. Wouldn’t it be?” He settles more comfortably, studying his nails with a completely innocent look on that obnoxious face of his.

Will kicks him, until Kayla manages to entangle herself around him, laughing like a madwoman. Her drool ends up on the back of Will’s neck.

“Come on, tell us,” Kayla says, her voice strained. “We won’t tell dad. I promise!”

Austin groans. “If I must, I will keep your dirty little secrets. Even if it breaks my heart.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Will huffs. “What do you honestly think we’ve done?”

Kayla shrieks. “I _knew_ it!”

“You held hands and stared into each other’s eyes?” Austin suggests.

Will puts his hands on his face, squirming until Kayla rolls off him. “If you want to know more, get an ex-husband of your own.”

“Isn’t it just so romantic?” Kayla sighs dreamily with a dorky smile on her face. It takes Will a moment to realize she’s being serious. “You got married and fell in love so hard you decided to remarry.”

“That’s really not how it went,” Will says.

“But it’s what people say,” Austin responds. “I heard Daphne’s ladies-in-waiting saying it.”

“Because we’re in our own home,” Will says. He ignores the tug in his heart as he speaks. “They can only give it a happy start with a happy ending. Even if it’s not how it went.”

“You never really told us what happened.” Austin stretches, arching his back like a cat under the sun.

“It’s late.” Will rubs his neck. He _is_ tired, but he doesn’t feel like sleeping. He stifles a yawn. “And I told you. He thought I wasn’t happy, which I wasn’t much, in fact. Then we became friends and everything, and we both fell in love. That’s what happened.”

“But you still asked for the annulment.” Kayla closes her eyes, then opens only one, to watch him like a very sleepy hawk.

“And now we are getting married again. That’s the important. Let’s just sleep now, mh?”

Nico’s father once told him that becoming King means becoming one with the throne, which is connected to the soil of their kingdom. If Aita is in danger, if the throne is, you feel it, like a pressure in the back of your mind. When you use your powers for the good of the kingdom, they are stronger. For everything else, especially what is special to you, they are weaker. Everything taking attention from the kingdom goes back to the second, third place in your mind. Nico, young and made Crown Prince shortly earlier, had been fairly confused by his father’s words. Back then, he hadn’t even begun to know, just how deep his powers were.

As he sits by the dock of Delphi’s lake, with Will by his side, his siblings playing behind them, he remembers those words. The sun is shining, kissing Will’s skin as if it were the only reason the gods created it. The corners of Will’s eyes crinkle when he laughs, grabbing Nico’s forearm to avoid falling face-first on the ground.

Nico’s mouth twitches in a smile, but there’s a faint pain in the back of his head.

Will calls his name softly when they have walked enough to be out of the others’ earshot.

“Is everything alright? You seem tired,” he says.

Nico’s head throbs, and he can’t hide a painful grimace. “I didn’t sleep too well. I’ll be alright, don’t worry.”

“I could try healing you.” Will grins again, his eyes are just as bright as the sky. It shouldn’t surprise Nico to see how beautiful he is, but it still does at times. “I’ve been told, I’m a pretty good healer.”

Nico puts his hand on Will’s on the crook of his elbow. “You are invaluable, Lord William.”

Will’s smile turns brighter, but his eyes narrow. “Are you trying to sweeten me for something?”

Nico shrugs. “It just felt like I needed to let you know.”

Will turns away, but there’s a blush on his cheeks, and Nico is proud of having put it there. Then again, how could he explain the weird sense of expectation under his skin, akin to the one he feels before battles? How could he explain the fear expressing itself in the knot of his throat, that things are about to change, and he doesn’t know when and how?

Even if he tried, he also couldn’t explain the longing in his chest. He misses Will, but they are side by side, and he doesn’t know why, so he just caresses his knuckles with every bit of gentleness he is capable of. When he opens his eyes, he masks every emotion with calm.

“There’s no need to worry.” There’s a solitary and proud bush not too far from them, in the rocky part of the shores. “Are those daises? Come, Will. Show them to me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! let me know what you think of this chapter in a comment, and also if anyone is following my other wip (invisible string) just know that i'm writing the next and final chapter, it's almost ready to be published


	4. of the times we need the darkness to glow under the lights

Apollo sits on pillows on the ground, baby daughter held to his chest, and the sun shining gently on them. A perfume of fresh roses permeates through the air, coming from the ones braided in his golden hair. His eyes meet Will’s from across the room. For once, it doesn’t feel like being with an older brother, but he sees the father behind that mask. Apollo isn’t a bad father, but he isn’t the best either. He’s too egocentric, and sometimes forgets that his children have needs.

“I was told you wanted to see me,” Will says. He sits on the other pillow, curling around one of the littler ones to his chest. He puts his chin on his fist, waiting.

The sun is getting low. They are in one of the eastern towers, which his father uses when he wants to be alone for a bit, usually to work on his art. The sun makes Will’s skin golden, but Rachel, his father’s oracle, has said that in the next days there’s going to be a storm. But as far as his can get, Will sees no clouds.

“When I was younger, I didn’t know how to control my prophetic dreams,” Apollo says. His daughter’s big eyes fix on him, and she smiles. She feels safe with him. She is. “I would get lost in the future for hours every day, and when I awoke, I didn’t always know whether I was still dreaming. I didn’t think it would ever get better, but I _saw_ it would. I saw a future I wanted, so I worked towards it.”

“That’s good for you,” Will says. Where is this conversation going? Apollo doesn’t often admit his faults, usually pointing his finger to someone else, and saying _they_ should have done more. The only time Will has ever seen him pointing his finger at himself, was with Michael and Lee’s deaths. It’s not a pleasant thought to have, especially with his baby sister in the room.

“Don’t get sarcastic on me, boy.” The corner of Apollo’s mouth tugs up, and his smile widens. “I’ve been worried about your engagement to Prince Nicholas.”

Tears sting in the corner of Will’s eyes. He looks away. “I have gathered as much already.”

“I won’t come in between you two anymore.”

Will turns his head so fast he gets whiplash. For a moment, he can only gasp like a fish, at a loss for words, lost between pain and relieved surprise. There are times, in his life, when he wonders why so many people have fallen in love with Apollo. He can’t even remember all of their names. But now, Apollo is looking up at him, with flowers in his head, his daughter in his arms, and Will can see their reasons.

“What changed?” He asks.

Apollo shrugs with a shoulder. Valentina opens and closes her fist, and he puts the index of his free hand in it. She giggles. “I looked at the future. And I decided to let you two figure it out yourselves.”

“Will you not tell me more?” Will asks, and he already knows the answer, even as he cocks an eyebrow and insists. “How to do it?”

“Wouldn’t it be unfair?” The crease between Apollo’s eyebrows deepens. “I have always envied those without the Sight. I am so often unsurprised. It’s harder ignoring its call, sometimes. Your mother sang at mine and your aunt Artemis’ birthday. I met her eyes across the room, and I saw a kid with dark hair, eyes the color of the sky, and a healer’s kind soul.”

Will furrows his eyebrows. “I turned out quite different, didn’t I?”

Apollo’s smile is the answer to questions Will hasn’t found yet.

Nico is talking to Percy when he sees Will, sitting on the fountain’s steps with Austin. He forgets to excuse himself from the conversation, simply walking away. Percy’s indignant sputters follow him.

“Lord William, Lord Austin,” he greets them, bowing his head.

Austin responds in kind, while Will just leans back on the steps, offering his hand to Nico. Nico hides his grin behind Will’s knuckles. When he doesn’t let go, simply holding onto his hand, Will looks pleased.

“What brings you here, Your Highness?” He asks. His eyes sparkle with promises, and words as gentle as the daises around his neck. Nico forgets how to breathe.

“I was told,” Nico says, sitting on the step below Will’s, close enough for their knees to brush against one another’s. “That the sky is beautiful on Delphi at this time of the day. So I came to check myself.”

Nico tries to think of the sky, painting in orange above them, but all he can see is Will, and his smile, and the shy blush he has, because he what Nico is actually thinking about can be read in the smile on his face.

“We are leaving for the temple in a bit,” Will says. Nico squeezes his hand, and his Adam apple bobs as he gulps. “When the bells ring, we have to move to the square. The horses will be there.”

“Don’t you have something you want to tell His Highness, Will?” Austin asks, with a smile so wide his face must hurt. Nico’s would. As physically different as they are, to him it’s clear that they are brothers. How Apollo has raised such wonderful children is beyond his comprehension.

“Oh, of course.” Will sits straighter, and it brings him closer to Nico, but he doesn’t move away. Nico has never despised being in public so much, with the long in his chest to kiss Will so strong. It would be so easy to close the shadows around them, but people would talk. “I have spoken with my father today. About our engagement.”

Nico’s heart jumps in his throat. He clears his throat, and when his fingers tremble, Will squeezes his hand. He’s smiling, and calm falls on Nico like a blanket.

“He’s decided to let us figure it out ourselves,” Will continues. “Which is an anticlimactic way of giving us his honest blessing.”

Nico smiles. Months ago, he has knelt in front of Will, and Will has placed a crown of flowers on his head, and they promised to make each other happy, and get married again, out of their free will this time. Knowing Lord Apollo has given them his blessing lifts a weight off Nico’s chest, one he has almost forgotten about, amongst the others.

He is about to kiss Will again, forgetting that they are in public and not in the Lands of Dreams, when Austin clears his throat, and Will puts a hand on Nico’s chest, curling his fingers in the soft fabric of his shirt. Austin doesn’t meet Nico’s eyes, and Will’s laugh drowns away every other sound in the gardens.

“We are still in public, _darling_ ,” Will says in a low voice, and it sends shivers down Nico’s spine.

“Sorry,” he says, but he isn’t sorry at all. He doesn’t move away, caressing Will’s knuckles with his thumb.

“I’m interested in someone,” Austin blurts out.

Will’s head turns so fast, Nico already knows he’s gotten whiplash, even before he tries to mask a grimace.

“Do we know them?” Will asks. _We_. If anyone were to say Nico’s heart skipped a beat at this, he would deny it to the end of the universe. (They’d be right, though.) He turns to Nico with an expression that would send grown man running. “If my little brother marries before we do, I am finding Sherman.”

Nico’s good mood is gone in an instant. “I’d like to see sir Sherman trying to crawl out of the pitch I’ve sent him in.”

Will shakes his head with a smile far too fond for two who have gone through an annulment. “Gods, I love how silly you can be.”

“I won’t tell you a thing,” Austin says. “I only wanted to let you know that. So you know. Now you know.”

“Does Kayla know?” Will asks.

“No, she does not.” He groans, attracting attention from the nymph caressing the roses in a nearby flowerbed. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, can you just let it go, Will? Gods, you can be so _insistent_.”

As princes, Jason, Nico, Percy and Annabeth are invited to travel with Lord Apollo’s family to the temple, to present the child to the gods. The sky is turning blue, and a star has already appeared by the time they arrive at their destination.

There are three Priestesses waiting, their long, colorful robes whipped by the wind. A satyr sits at the bottom of the staircase, playing a hopeful song from a flute. It echoes in the silence.

The temple itself is an opulent construction, painted in blue and golden, perched on a high hill to watch over Delphi’s lake. They say that, on good days, the Priestesses’ eyes can reach Olympus, where the Royal Family lives. Jason’s gaze wanders, lost in that direction. Nico knows the feeling of not being home, and missing it, even if he is not yet there, not with Will so close to him after so long.

Apollo talks with the Priestesses, and they are granted access to the temple. Temples here in the south are differen. Here, people are afraid of death, they pray the gods to be granted one that isn’t painful, and mercy from the Underworld. In Aita, people pray to have a good life, one they can be proud of when they reach their death. As much as one prays, death isn’t avoidable.

Once inside, they are left to wander, up until they’ll be called for the ritual.

“You’ve never been here before, have you?” Will whispers, but his voice echoes through the silent hall. “Come, I’ll show you the gallery.”

So they walk further into the temple, and every step they take, the air is colder against their skin. Will shivers, unused to colder temperatures, and dressed too lightly even for this.

Nico looks behind his shoulder, and since they are alone, he puts his arm around Will’s waist, bringing him closer.

“Aren’t you just the least possessive, Your Highness?” Will asks, fluttering his eyelashes. A smile tugs his lips upwards.

Nico leans closer, and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Aren’t you the prettiest, Lord William?” He blushes as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Will shoves Nico, but closes his fist around his shirt before he can move too far. Nico’s chuckles echo through the hall, and Will shushes him, pinching him on the hip.

Finally, they see a long corridor lightened by sun-gems placed on the walls and every few tiles on the floor. The goosebumps on Will’s skin disappear with each step that brings them closer. Their gentle light kisses his skin perfectly.

On one wall are large, arch-shaped windows, on the opposite one are hung tapestries, that show a man and an enormous serpent. Young Apollo and Python. In the corner of the room, placed on a velvety pillow, is a golden bow.

“You sure possess a lot of gold,” Nico says, tracing the lines drawn on the bow. It’s warm to the touch, and it vibrates when Will touches it, too. Nico retreats his hand quickly.

Will chuckles lightly. “As a matter of fact, we do. Especially after Python was killed, he had been keeping lots of it. Like a dragon.” He grimaces, stepping behind Nico on his tiptoes, and putting his chin on the other’s shoulder. “They have kept the skin, somewhere close to the lake, under the temple. In another cave, with curses and spells so that it can never be alive again.”

Nico turns around, putting his arms around Will’s waist, their foreheads gently pressed against one another’s. “I didn’t know such spells existed.”

“There are many things you don’t know about witchery.”

Nico hums. “I guess you’re right. Do you?”

“Some. Lou Ellen is my dear friend, and she’s a witch. They aren’t seen as something wild and to be tamed here.”

Nico gulps, and his throat bobs. His next words are spoken quietly, a soft caress against Will’s skin. “Maybe, when we’ll be Kings together, we can make it happen in Aita, too.”

The sun-gems are helpful, but Nico is sure that Will’s bright smile would be enough to light up the whole world. Then it turns into something softer, but beaming no less.

“Do you often think about us being Kings together?”

Nico’s cheeks heat in less than a second. The freckles on Will’s cheeks stretch and widen as he smiles, and maybe some humiliation he can accept, if this is the sight it brings Nico.

“Often enough,” Nico chooses to reveal. He licks his lips, avoiding Will’s eyes, although they are magnetic, and bring Nico’s eyes back to them a thousand times, so blinding they give his mind and rationality no space to realize. “I think we could build something good.”

Will’s smile softens again. He is always so kind, and so gentle. When Nico says something stupid, and he smacks him on the chest. When he draws in acrobatic positions, when he used to wear a crown and stand next to Nico, covered in furs and jewels.

“I want to marry you so much,” Nico blurts out in a breath.

Will flushes a deep red.

A Priestess comes to collect them. She is old, with only two, long, grey and curled strands of hair reaching her waist, the rest is covered by a green veil, the same color as her robes, which brush against the pavement with every steps she takes, and every time it sounds like a lover’s whispered and broken promises. She eyes every place Nico and Will’s bodies touch with her lips tugged downwards.

Nico is the first to take a step away, his face blank, but his cheeks dusted in a light pink. It’s almost endearing, how sweetly shy he is. Will would be laughing, if he didn’t feel so cold, already missing the other’s warmth.

They follow the Priestess to the heart of the temple, or somewhere close to it. They get through a silky curtain, and find themselves on a balcony, already occupied with Kayla, Austin, Meg, Jonathan, Daphne, Jason, Annabeth and Percy.

The balcony overlooks a huge room. Hyacinthus and Apollo are walking down the aisle, their daughter in Apollo’s arms. Their steps can be heard all the way up to the balcony. The High Priestess waits for them at the end of the aisle, on a circular altar, looking like a statue in her white robes.

“Looks like they’re walking on a spoon,” Percy comments under his breath, his signature smirk tugging his lips.

Annabeth turns her face, clearly hiding her own smile as she pinches his arm. Daphne doesn’t try to hide her amusement, but raises an eyebrow as if challenging him to add anything else. Jason and Nico both glare at their cousin. Will intertwines his fingers to Nico’s.

“You two were late,” Daphne whispers. “Were alone for a lot of time, too, after always being under the watchful eyes of Lady Reyna.”

Nico chokes on thin air, and Will flushes.

“ _Daphne_ ,” he hisses.

Kayla snickers.

Austin takes pity upon them. “Weren’t we here to watch a ceremony?”

Will nods, turning his attention back to his family under them. He ignores Jonathan’s giggles.

“Lord William,” Jason whispers, appearing on his other side. He nods in greeting at Nico, who grimly nods back. Will squeezes his hand. _Baby steps._ “Your Highness.”

Will puts his free hand on the railing, leaning slightly forward. Nico’s hand is immediately on his hip, keeping him steady. Will rolls his eyes, suppressing a smile.

“I’m not looking for a swim,” he whispers. “I have no intention of falling.”

“Good-fucking-thing no one who does has, then,” Nico hisses, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

“I want to see better.”

“The five centimeters you have just gained will really help with that. And I’m sure your sister will be so happy when she’s grown up, knowing her brother is an idiot who risked his life, while her parents were choosing her name.”

“Gods, I would have taken a step back, had you asked kindly, but now I really want to step over this railing and jump.”

Nico’s nose scrunches up, and Will almost coos. Almost, because they are bickering after all, and this is not the time to get distracted by the way shadows always gravitate towards Nico, even now, and can anyone even blame them? After all, Will does, too.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Will whispers, and Nico looks away, sticking his tongue in his cheek, with a frown marrying his features, and Will wants to live in this moment forever. The corner of Nico’s mouth is twitching, like he should be smiling.

Kayla shushes them, and less than a second later, Hyacinthus is talking.

“We come forth to announce our daughter’s name.” He looks at the High Priestess as he talks, his voice steady, his posture straight. He is every bit Apollo’s consort, and Will has to remind himself that he isn’t, that Daphne is.

Apollo talks next, but he isn’t looking at those on the altar, he’s looking at Nico, for a very long moment. “We have chosen the name _Valentina_.”

The High Priestess continues the ceremony, but Will is feeling a bit numb, and he doesn’t understand why, up until Meg repeats the name, and Jason whispers, talking to Nico, leaning forward to look at him beyond Will, “Isn’t that a name used in Venice?”

Nico’s body is stiff where is touches Will’s. He nods, but he doesn’t look at Jason. His eyes bear holes in Will’s. “Is that what he talked to you about?”

“No, he didn’t say anything about my sister’s name. Is it–is it like a big deal, if he’s choosing an Aitaean name?”

Finally, Nico’s gaze leaves Will’s, and goes behind his shoulder. Jason fidgets, drumming his fingers on the railing.

“It’s not a bad thing, necessarily,” Jason says, putting his hand on Will’s shoulder, squeezing a bit. “It’s actually a very nice name. I like it.”

Will turns back to Nico, who tries to offer him a smile of sorts. It looks like a grimace. Before he can say anything else, a hymn rises from below. It’s the High Priestess singing, as Apollo calls the light of the sun to himself, and when he opens his fist, a ball of pure, golden light levitates on his palm.

Nico takes a sharp breath. Has he never seen something like this? In the north, Will knows, people don’t have these kind of celebrations every time they have a child. Especially since they don’t wait three months to choose and announce the name.

The ball of light breaks, and falls to the waters below the altar.

“Looks like falling stars,” Nico whispers to Will, in a tone so full of wonder, Will doesn’t think two times before stepping closer, and resting his cheek on the other’s shoulder.

“Try making a wish,” Will responds in the same tone. “Maybe it’ll come true.”

Even if he turns, Will sees Nico’s smile.

The celebration doesn’t last much longer. A Priestess comes forward from the curtain, and tells them that everyone will find their own way back, by following their instincts.

“So we just walk,” Percy says, frown back on his face. “And somehow we will find the door.”

“We’ve done this many times,” Daphne says, Jonathan latching onto her index finger. A sad shadow falls onto her face, and disappears when she bops Jonathan’s nose. “The only one who ever got lost was Lee, and that’s because he didn’t listen to his heart.”

Will shakes Kayla, who seems on the verge of drifting off against a column, and she stumbles. Nico catches her before she hits the ground, and in response she puts her head on his shoulder, near the crook of his neck, closing her eyes again. Nico looks up at Will, who’s watching his sister with an expression he has never seen on his features. He looks at Daphne for help next, but she is watching Austin as he scoops a sleeping Jonathan in his arms.

“Damn, _Neeks_ ,” Percy says, eyeing Nico’s hand on Kayla’s waist. “Save some of House Usil for us. We know they are pretty, but behave yourself.”

“You are literally married,” Nico responds, but he can feel the heat rising to his cheeks. Annabeth pinches Percy’s hip.

“You are literally _getting_ married,” Percy shoots right back.

Annabeth sighs. “Give it up, both of you.”

Nico rolls his eyes. He shakes Kayla awake, and maybe letting her go alone isn’t the best idea, but they don’t really have a choice, if they want to get out. After they get through the curtain and get back to a corridor with many doors, Will squeezes Nico’s hand.

“See you out,” he says, with a little smile. Nico smiles back.

With every step Nico takes, the temperature drops, increasing the throbbing in the back of his head. He doesn’t stop, though. At some point he can even delude himself into thinking he’s in the mausoleum in Caere, with the white, colorless marble walls, and the constant cold, that reaches you to the bone, and doesn’t let you go even when you are out. It’s silent, so silent. A part of him hopes Will were beside him, but the cold would get to him much more than it does to Nico.

A tapestry is pulled open as Nico walks past it, and his first instinct is to pin the intruder to the wall, with his hand under their chin. Unluckily, it’s Apollo, whose eyebrow is raised with disapproval at Nico. Gods, it’s so startling how similar he is to every one of his children.

Percy is right behind Apollo, and seems very constipated as he turns many shades of red, trying to keep the laughter in. They walk in silence for some time, then take two different turns. Nico meets again with Apollo not long later, and this time he isn’t with Percy, but with his whole family. Will is the only one who remains with Nico when the others leave.

They walk in a portico filled with a flowerbed, where two satyrs are sleeping. Will and Nico are too close together, and their hands bump against one another’s, until Nico grows tired of it, and simply tangles their fingers.

“How is it going for you?” Nico asks, his voice hushed. It would feel strange to speak at a normal volume in a temple.

“Peachy,” Will says, with the glint of a challenge in his eyes. “I’ve been told you tried to kill my dad.”

“I didn’t!” Nico exclaims, and winces at the volume of his own voice. He looks back at the satyrs, but they haven’t so much as stirred. “I didn’t. He just surprised me, is all.”

Will bumps their shoulders, with a dramatic and heavy sigh, before turning and resting his back against the wall near a window, a light breeze moves his curls. “I _suppose_ that also means I’m safe with you.”

Heat grows on Nico’s cheeks. He looks outside, he can almost make out the lake, but it’s too far away. Will stands on his tiptoes to put his chin on Nico’s shoulder.

“You should let go of the past,” Nico says, a smile tugging his lips upwards. He leans onto the windowsill, arching slightly against Will. “You aren’t the tallest, now. Can’t do that anymore.”

“Over my dead body. I’ll always be right here, on my tiptoes if necessary.”

He wraps his arms around Nico’s waist, but he stumbles, and ultimately puts his cheek against Nico’s shoulder, giving up with a long-suffered huff. Nico puts his hands over Will’s. They should move, they can’t stay here together and still for much longer.

“Do you see the outline of the mountain peaks?” Will asks, and waits for Nico’s nod before continuing. “When the city was under attack by Kronos, that’s the only time we ever used the warning fires. The lights reflected on the lake.”

“Were you there?”

“I was.” He takes a step back, hooking his arm in the crook of Nico’s elbow, tugging him to get going.

A smile forms on his face, when Nico notices the way the mix of moonlight coming from the outside and the sun-gems is dancing on Will. However, they separate not long later.

Nico finds himself at the top of a marble staircase. The stairs are covered by a thin, velvet carpet, and no step he takes makes a single sound. He can’t see the bottom, but when he looks back, the door has already closed. He wishes he had brought his sword. Shadows curl around his hands.

He stands closer to the wall, caressing it with a finger as he walks down. He is just a little over the middle, when something warm drops on his head. He freezes. Slowly, with fear deep in his throat, he looks up.

Water is leaking from the ceiling. It makes no sense. Another droplet hits Nico’s cheek. He can’t stay here forever, so he goes back to his descent.

He is must be close to the lake, because he finds himself in an open cave, with warm waters that reach his knee. He needs to pass an uphill to go out, crawling on his knees, as the ceiling is too low for him to stand. He scrapes his palms, and he could shadow-travel, but he won’t take the easy way out in front of Will’s family and his own cousins.

The air outside is warm. He really is near the shore, and he only allows himself a second to take in how beautiful the view is, before looking back, and seeing the lights of the temple, not much close to him.

The only way to reach are the wooden stairs, half-buried by a thick layer of ivy and dirt. Nico takes it with a sigh.

Gardens dedicated to the gods are different in the south. In the north, they don’t feel so personal, and surely aren’t so colorful. The most used colors are red, for their current Queen Persephone, and they use it to paint runes on the trees. But here, instead of trees, they have all kinds of flowers in bloom, and runes are placed on tiles on the floor.

A wooden bridge connects the garden of the gods to an open tower, and Nico realizes just now that he has entered the temple’s grounds again. A laugh echoes in the silence. Nico looks back, but there’s no one behind him. He turns, startled to find a Priest in the middle of the tower. He wears long robes, darker than the night sky, but when he raises his head to lock eyes with Nico, his face is sickly pale under the hood. Runes are drawn over his hollow cheeks.

Nico’s breath breaks. He has heard of the Chosen, Priests and Priestesses that live in the higher grounds of the temples, praying to the gods, talking to them every time a new rune is drawn on their skin. They talk rarely to the living, almost never. Nico has never met one, has only barely seen a female one, the day of his mother’s passing. He remembers clutching onto Bianca’s hand, as the figure loomed near his mother’s corpse. As far as he was from that Priestess, he could feel the heat of her body. The heat of the gods’ words.

Now there’s no Bianca to clutch onto. The Priest gestures for Nico to come closer, so he does, with the bridge rocking under his steps. He doesn’t stumble. When he is on the tower, the Priest opens his mouth, and for a long moment he only rasps. When he can finally find his voice, it’s frailer than any old man’s Nico has ever met.

“Three are the crowns, but only one is safe. Two are falling already, and the heads they’ll find, are not ready.”

Nico’s heart drops. For a moment, the world spins around him, and he can’t find it in himself to grasp onto anything. “Which crowns?”

“ _The_ crowns.” He looks over at the sky. It’s still dark, the night is young still, and the sun won’t be out for many other hours. “It’s late. Find your way out, Nicholas.”

Will sits with his family, Annabeth and Jason, waiting for the two missing princes. Eventually they appear at the gates. Nico walks over to Will immediately, his eyes slightly widened, his lips parted. He cups Will’s face gently, but his eyes are almost haunted as they check out Will.

“How are you? Are you hurt?” He asks. Will has barely shaken his head before Nico looks over at Annabeth, who is receiving the same treatment from her husband. His eyes go to Jason then.

“You, too?” Jason asks in a quiet voice.

Will’s family are already mounting their horses. Meg is half asleep, while Jonathan is completely out, put in their father’s arms.

Although he has lost Nico’s response to Jason’s question, Will sees Percy nodding, and Annabeth standing on her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear.

“We should talk about it,” Jason says, taking the horse’s reins in his hands, but making otherwise no move to mount.

“About what?” Will asks, rubbing his hand over his eye. He barely keeps in a yawn.

“Later,” Nico says. His fingers drop from Will’s face. The look on his face makes Will’s stomach twist. He doesn’t like it at all. “We’ll talk later.”

They mount, and before Will realizes it –he may have drifted off, he can’t remember much of the ride– they have reached the shores, and there are little boats waiting for them. Nico helps him dismount, which is more helpful than Will likes to admit, as he stumbles and almost falls. He stifles another yawn.

“You’re such a baby, sometimes,” Nico says, but his voice sounds far too fond.

Will shoves Nico, but keeps their hands intertwined. Apollo helps Jonathan, Kayla, Meg, Daphne and Hyacinthus with Valentina on the first boat, slightly bigger than the other. He gives Will a look that tells him far too much for his liking. Will himself helps Nico on the second boat. They travel with Annabeth, Percy, Jason and Austin.

“What happens now?” Nico asks, his words a bit slurred.

“We go back to the Palace,” Annabeth says, burying her face in her hands. “I had forgotten how tiring this was.”

“Don’t you do it in the north?” Jason asks, rolling his neck.

Annabeth shrugs. Her mother is Lady Athena, and rules over a patch of lands in Zeus’ kingdom, not far from Apollo’s land. Her father comes from lands far north, confine with Aita.

“We choose the name as soon as the baby is born,” she says. “There’s a one-day long celebration, the name is said, and all is over.”

Attention goes to Nico next, but he is softly snoring on Will’s shoulder, out for good.

“They don’t have big celebrations either,” Will says, shifting a bit so that Nico doesn’t wake up with cracks in his neck. He puts his cheek on the top of Nico’s head, breathing in the perfume of his hair.

It would be good, if he were on the parents’ boat with Nico and a child of their own. He can even see it. Blushing, he scrambles to find something else to think about. Nico shifts in his sleep, and his breath hits Will’s collarbones. He doesn’t dare moving.

Will realizes he has fallen asleep only when Austin shakes him and Nico awake. Thanks to the help of the nymphs–and Percy, who wants to go back to his bed–they reach the Palace of Gold when the moon is still high. They are less than a hundred feets from the dock, when hundreds, maybe thousands, of lights glow on top of the hill.

“Lanterns,” Will whispers in Nico’s ear, putting an arm around his waist. “With wishes from the people, my people, written all over them.”

“Gods,” is all Nico says, and his voice betrays awe.

They first met when they were young, so young, and Nico hadn’t lost his sister yet. For a moment, watching him as his eyes widen, filled with so many emotions all at once, Will can think that they are eleven again. But if they were so young, they wouldn’t be together, and Will couldn’t keep his arm around his shoulder, nor look at him with adoration freely written on his every feature.

So he is happy with being (almost) twenty.

The boat rocks gently, and lanterns fly over their heads. Some fall into the waters. Will leans out of the boat to save one, after it almost touches the waters. Nico laughs, shoving him lightly, almost making him fall. It’s Nico himself to keep him on, though. The lights dance on his face, a smile widens on his lips, and Will is so in love.

It’s a feeling that feels alive, and how couldn’t it be, when it grows every time he sees Nico? Every time he so much as thinks about the other?

They are on a boat with four other people, yet none of them come to Will’s attention as he cups Nico’s jaw with his hand, and strokes his thumb over the cheekbone. 

For the next many years, he’ll live in Caere. After Nico turns twenty-five, and until the first of their children does, too, they’ll be there, so that they can rule together. Will’s heart is always going to be divided between Delphi, every place his siblings will end up into, and the home he’ll share with Nico and their children. But that isn’t for many other years, so Will holds onto the present, the day they’re living, in which he is in love.

Nico wraps his fingers around the wrist of the hand Will is keeping on his face, and leans forward slowly. Just as he thinks they’ll kiss, Nico shifts his trajectory a bit, and his breath caresses the shell of Will’s ear.

“Can I come to your room tonight?” He whispers, so quietly Will almost misses the words. “To sleep.”

Will smiles. “Of course.”

“I’ll need to tell Reyna, first.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have clearly taken the scene from tangled and i don't regret it at all


	5. remember those shadows we called friends?

Will shut the curtains of the windows before going to bed, so only the light is that of the candle on the bedside table, and it shows Nico’s face in the shadows, slowly curling away from him.

Nico smiles, crawling into bed, with a yawn. He looks tense, older than he is. As they lay side to side, facing each other, Will caresses his cheek.

“There’s something you’re hiding from me,” Will says, his voice barely a slurred whisper. Nico’s eyes widen slightly, and a blank look falls onto his face, like a cloud covering the sun. Will sighs. “You’re doing it even more now. What are you here for, being a statue?”

Nico turns his face, to kiss Will’s palm. “I’m not even sure what I’m hiding.”

“It’s something that happened to you in the temple?” He asks, and Nico nods. Will snuggles closer, stifling a yawn. “I want to know.”

Nico secures an arm around Will’s waist, making him curl against him. “You need to sleep.”

“That’s not the point,” he responds. “I want to listen to what happened to you. It bothers you.”

“I trust you, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but–”

“The _but_ turns everything that comes before it into bullshit.”

Nico is silent for a long moment. “You really got me there.” He groans, covering his face with his hands, turning on his back without letting go of Will. “I don’t want you to worry about me when you already have your studies and everything else to worry about.”

“You worry about my studies, though! It’s normal to worry about things concerning one another.” Will bites his lips, watching the ceiling for a long time, although he can’t make it out. The only thing he can see is Nico, and at the moment he can’t bear his gaze, not with the flush raising on his cheeks and neck. “Do you have someone to talk about it?” _Is it Clovis?_ Will doesn’t have the courage nor that little dignity to ask.

“Tomorrow I’m talking to Jason, Percy, Annabeth and Reyna. I need to talk about it with my father first, I thought I could visit him in the Dream Land.”

“That’s good, but I actually meant back home. If you talk about things that, um, trouble you with someone.” Oh dear gods, if only the bed would split open and swallow Will, he would be so grateful. Still, he clears his throat, and specifies, “Back home.”

“Sometimes I ask my father what he would do. Not much. I usually talk about it with Reyna, but there’s also this other one advisor of my dad I like. It’s more for political things.” He grimaces, scrunching up his nose. “Persephone tries to make me talk about my feelings, and so does Hazel. I do it with Hazel, sometimes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It often revolves around you, unsurprisingly. She’s also been helping me with…” The sentence is left without an end, and Nico’s heartbeat stutters, too close to Will’s ear for him to miss it.

“With what?”

“I can’t tell you.” Probably noticing how Will’s face crumbles at his words, Nico adds: “Because it’s a surprise to you!”

“What kind of surprise?”

“Don’t make me say it! Actually, don’t even look at me.” Nico puts a hand on his eyes, turning away, and Will laughs. “I’ll end up saying it.”

“Please, I want to know!” Will crawls on top of Nico, tangling up in the blankets. Their laughs fill the room. “If you aren’t naming a lake after me like you promised you would, I am going to be very upset! Gods, I can see it on your face, that’s it, isn’t it? I’m about to own a lake!”

“Your family owns a lake, you dumbass!” Nico says from under his hands, his words coming muffled.

Will’s body shakes with laughter, and he loses his equilibrium, falling forward. It would be alright–even a positive thing, if one were to look at it in a certain way–but there’s a pointy thing on Nico’s chest, that basically stabs Will’s abdomen. His laughter dies, and he hisses in pain.

“What is it?” Nico asks, sitting in one smooth move, as though he doesn’t have a grown man straddling his lap. “Are you hurt?”

Will rubs his abdomen, a pout forming on his lips. “Are you keeping daggers on yourself? Are the guards not for your safety but for everyone else’s?”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Ah-ha, Lord William. You are so, very funny. Did you stab yourself on my ribs?”

Will rolls off him, and a sun-gem above his bed lightens. There’s a red spot where he is hurting, bruising already.

“Oh, fuck. Was it my necklace?” Nico continues. His cheeks are reddening, and Will decides to have some pity for him.

“It’s alright. Just take it off so I can sleep on you.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Um, goodnight.”

As he lays next to Nico, waiting for sleep to fall onto him, Will realizes that Nico hasn’t gotten around to telling him what is wrong.

When Will awakes, Nico is sitting at the foot of the bed, with his knees to his chest. He looks back at Will over his shoulder. The curtains over the windows are still closed, but a slice of sun enters, falling on Nico’s head as a gods-given crown.

“I tried reaching my father,” he finally says, his voice raspy. “He wasn’t in the Dream Land.”

Up until a few months ago, Will didn’t know of its existence, as only some of the northerners have powers over it, enough to go in and out. He sits straighter, clearing his throat. “I thought every living had access to it.”

“Exactly.” Nico’s shoulders are slumped, with every word he curls more on himself. Will crawls to him, but he remains as stiff as a statue. “I’ve had this weird feeling for the past day or so. But sometimes it just happens to me, I feel like there’s something wrong, when actually there isn’t. So I haven’t thought much of it, but now I wonder whether it might be the gods trying to call me.”

“Listen, why don’t we talk to my father?” Will proposes. Finally, Nico’s eyes rise from the ground. Dark circles rest under them, like he hasn’t slept much last night. “He might see whether you need to go home or not.”

“I don’t want to leave you already.” Nico shakes his head, and Will squeezes his shoulder. They both know that, if there’s something wrong, he has no choice over the matter. “We only have so much time together.”

“I don’t want you to leave either,” Will says. He leans forward, kissing Nico on the cheek. “I missed you, and I’ll miss you. Let’s go to my father, so we at least know whether we’re getting nervous about a real enemy.”

“We can’t walk through the palace like this,” Nico says, gesturing to their night clothes.

Will rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t it just be a shame if someone could shadow-travel, though?”

Nico’s eyes widen, as if Will were saying profanities. “Your father is going to know that–”

“Nico.”

Cold falls over Will. Next time he opens his eyes, he finds himself in front of the doors to his father’s rooms. The corridor is empty, and Nico is quick to knock.

“I knocked, so you talk,” he whispers. Will rubs tiredly at his eyes, giving Nico a side-glance. Nico huffs, crossing his arms. “Alright, I’ll do everything myself.”

The doors are opened by Hyacinthus, only half dressed, and looking at them with furrowed eyebrows. His eyes fall onto their clothing, their bare feet, and the left corner of his lips lifts in a loop-sided grin.

“Well, well, well,” he says. “What kind of scandal do we have here?”

Will clears his throat, as Nico blushes a deep red. “We need to talk to my father.”

“He isn’t here,” Hyacinthus responds. “He just went to a meeting. Why? Is something the matter?”

“Do you have any idea when he’ll be done?” Will asks.

“He usually gets bored after an hour,” Hyacinthus says. “I’ll tell him to come to you if something happens, alright?”

They get dressed before meeting with Nico’s cousins. Nico stops on the way to their rooms to get Reyna, and she says she’s already been informed of the meeting with the Chosen by Jason. She also says that Nico looks particularly pale, but he doesn’t have time to mention the pain in the back of his head. When they get to Percy and Annabeth’s rooms, Jason and Will are already there. They sit at the table.

After they have all traded their side of the story, Jason talks.

“So none of us were told which crowns will fall,” he says.

“I wasn’t,” Percy says. “But I should tell my brother Triton. It concerns him more than me.”

“I tried to visit my father in the Dream Land tonight,” Nico says. “I couldn’t reach him. We–Will and I–tried to talk to Lord Apollo, but he wasn’t available. I also tried to visit Hazel during the night, but she also was out of my reach.”

“Something is clearly up in Aita,” Annabeth says.

Nico grimaces. “I–it’s not much to base upon, honestly.” His eyes meet Will’s, and Will bumps his knee against Nico’s. Nico doesn’t smile, but the tension in his shoulders visibly lessens. “I’ve been having some troubles with the Dream Land.”

“But you always visit me,” Will says.

“And he shouldn’t,” Reyna cuts in. She cocks an eyebrow at Nico. “You should listen to Clovis, with the trouble you went through to get him to Caere.”

“You brought him to Caere?” Will asks.

“Let’s worry about one thing at a time,” Annabeth says. Heat creeps up Will’s cheeks, but he crosses his arms, and ignores it. “We don’t know much. Today we’ll leave, and I don’t think we can do much except for getting home as fast as we can.”

Percy’s green eyes fix on Will. “You don’t happen to have your father’s Sight, do you?”

“Sometimes I see things less than a second before they happen, but it isn’t useful now,” he says. He snaps his fingers, sitting straighter. “We should ask Rachel if she knows anything. She is either down by the lake, or in the Oracle Tower. Oh, she also goes to the Oracle Cave, it’s at the end of the main road. There are signs on the road, anyway.”

“We should go find her,” Reyna says, raising from the seat. She puts her hands on the table, looking at everyone in the eyes when she calls their name. “Will and Nico, you two go to the Oracle Tower, and gods help me, do _not_ make me regret letting you two wander off without a chaperone. Annabeth and Percy, you two go down to the lake. Jason and I should attract less attention if we go together at the cave. Nico and Will, you two are the ones staying closer to Lord Apollo for a reason.”

“And it is that he doesn’t like the rest of us,” Percy ends.

Annabeth punches him in the arm. “And that Nico and Will can corrupt him with the promise of many grandchildren, if need be.”

Will rolls his eyes. “My father isn’t that bad.”

“And we have already corrupted one of our fathers with the promise of grandchildren,” Nico adds.

Reyna rubs her temples. “You two make my job so much harder.”

“I never really understood what that is, by the way,” Percy says, as they all rise from the table. “You are his father’s ward, but you are also his nanny? Feels like a nightmare to me.”

Annabeth shakes her head with a fond look on her face, intertwining their hands. She can’t hide the amusement that sparks in her eyes. “Let’s just get going, shall we, Seaweed Brain?”

Rachel is not in the tower. As they go back to Will’s father rooms, they meet Clovis. Who Will didn’t know was spending time in his own home. He recognizes the necklace barely visible around Nico’s neck, and asks whether it’s been helping him in the bedroom as much as he thought it would. Will tries not to show how much these words are affecting him. What does Clovis have to do with Nico’s activities in the bedroom? Who would even so freely speak about a prince’s own matters?

“So, uh.” Will clears his throat, once they are alone in the corridor again. “The necklace that you didn’t want to get off, is it from Clovis?”

Nico raises both eyebrows. “Well, I paid it.”

“Yes, but–um.” There a bitter taste on Will’s tongue. “What is he helping you with, exactly?”

“Oh my gods!” Nico exclaims, stopping dead in his tracks. He turns back, to the direction Clovis has disappeared into. “I should ask _him_ to contact my sister! He’s much better at it than I am. Gods, Will, you’re a genius.”

“I literally said nothing about–”

“Thank you!” Nico says. He steps forward, punching Will on the shoulder, as though he were his long-lost friend. “I’ll go talk to him now, but you go to your father!”

And he’s simply off, running after Clovis, leaving Will alone in the corridor.

“Nico, I really didn’t–” But Nico is gone, and Will can only sigh and groan at the same time, crossing his arms on the chest. “I really didn’t mean to send you running to him.”

If this is what Nico felt last year with sir Sherman, then Will can begin to understand him. With another groan, because no one can stop him on this one, Will leaves to get to his father.

Apollo is already in his rooms. Sitting on the windowsill, clearly knowing he is showing his best angle to those who enter the room, a book open on his lap, even if his eyes are on the fields below. There are dark circles under them, which is a sight Will hasn’t seen in years, not until his brothers’ death. It seems to be a recurring pattern these days.

“I already know what you are here for,” Apollo says, as soon as Will steps inside.

Will closes the doors behind himself, and he wishes Nico were beside him. His hands start shaking.

“Can you tell me anything?” Will asks, taking the seat beside his father. Their knees brush. The sun has warmed the glass of the window, and it’s pleasant when Will rests his side against it.

“You are my son.” Apollo smiles, his eyes flicker to Will’s reflection in the window. “You already know.”

“You can’t tell me anything.”

Apollo nods. He looks older than usual, and Will knows that even with the promise of grand-children, he wouldn’t be corrupted. Apollo may be immature at times, but he takes his gifts seriously.

“If you want to know the things I saw and not the ones I know, those would be a man standing in front of a mountain covered in snow, where no life could exist. A cold wind whipped his coat, so hard that even in the dream my skin was covered in goosebumps. The peak couldn’t be seen, and neither could the bottom, but it wasn’t as though fog and clouds were covering it. More as if the man were stuck. Another man was holding the broken wheel of a boat. The air smelled cold, as if death were next me. I turned, and I simply knew.”

When Will tries to speak, his voice breaks, and he has to start over. He knows, too. “What are your tips?”

“I can’t give you any,” Apollo says. “But if I could, I would tell you to follow your heart.”

Will furrows his eyebrows. “That’s the least useful tip in this situation.”

Apollo shrugs. “That’s what you say. There’s something else troubling you.” He crosses his legs, leaning forward with a slight pout. “I can’t help you with your Prince’s future, but I shall help with the rest.”

Will shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

He makes to stand, but his father takes his wrist, and yanks him back down.

“Don’t be silly,” Apollo says. “It’s troubling you, it can’t be nothing.”

Will plays with the hem of his shirt. He is about to respond, when a guard knocks on the door, announcing Lady Reyna and Prince Jason.

“There’s nothing he can tell us,” Will says. He rises, and he is already standing by the door when Apollo talks again.

“We’ll talk about the other matter later.”

Will nods. He walks back with Jason and Reyna to Percy and Annabeth’s rooms, and they update each other on what they’ve found. Reyna and Jason haven’t found Rachel either, which means she must be by the lake, so they’ll have to wait for Annabeth and Percy. Will tells them about his father’s dreams, but when they ask about Nico’s whereabouts, a frown falls on his face.

“He said that Clovis would help him, and disappeared,” Will says, crossing his arms on the chest.

There’s no one else in Percy and Annabeth’s rooms. They sit at the round table, and Jason starts munching on an apple he stole from one of the servants they met.

“Clovis?” He repeats, raising both eyebrows.

“He’s the son of some lord of Aita,” Will says. “He didn’t give me a name.”

“His father is Lord Hypnos,” Reyna says, as though it should explain anything. When the frown on Will’s face stays, she pushes her braid behind her shoulder, before talking again. “Do you not know him? His father is Duke of a large portion of northern Aita. The Lonely Lands, where days and nights last six months.”

“Why is he in Caere?” Will asks.

“In Caere?” Jason repeats. He’s starting to sound like a parrot.

“Prince Nico required his presence,” Reyna says, then looks at Will, like one would look at a petulant child. “He went back to his family about a week or two before we traveled here.”

“Why did Nico need him?” Jason asks, speaking the words on the tip of Will’s tongue.

“Lord Clovis has powers over the Dream Land. Nico has been having problems with it, recently.”

Will bites his lip. “But he came to meet me every night.” When he realizes how whiny his tone was, heat creeps up his cheeks.

“That’s because he chooses to disregard his personal health any chance he gets,” Reyna says. When Will opens his mouth, she adds: “If you want to know more, please do talk about it with your fiancé.”

Will’s frown deepens.

He doesn’t see Nico for the rest of the morning. He isn’t even at the celebrations, and Will does his best to ignore everyone’s eyes on him.

Will is sprawled on the fountain steps, Valentina in his arms, when Apollo sits beside him. His fingers brush through Will’s hair, and he hums when his son leans into the touch. Apollo isn’t necessarily good at being a father, but in moments like this, when he realizes how distressed his children are, he does try. It’s far more than Will can say about his biological mother.

“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” Will mumbles. He speaks in a soft voice, as his sister is finally asleep in his arms, and he has no intention of waking her.

Apollo leaves Will’s curls alone, and instead puts his arm around his waist. “Tell me the reason, maybe it’ll help you see.”

“There’s this boy. He’s son of Lord Hypnos of the Lonely Lands, in the far north of Aita. Nico has called him to Caere, and he doesn’t say why. Reyna doesn’t either.”

“Oh, I remember him. He casted a spell upon your sister, so that her sleep would be secured from nightmares.” At his father’s words, Will’s eyes fall to his sister, and how peace kisses her face so gently. A small, petty part of him wants to shake her awake. Apollo seems to read his mind. “Only a little upset, uh?”

“It’s just that…” Will takes a deep breath, and when he exhales, it dances through Valentina’s hair. “Clovis gave him a necklace, and he wears it even to bed. Yesterday I asked him to take it off, because–”

Only when he sees how high Apollo’s eyebrows have raised, does Will realize what he just confessed. For a moment, they stay in silence, watching one another, waiting to see who will break first.

“Please don’t kill him,” Will blurts out. “I swear, we didn’t even do anything yesterday.”

“If not yesterday, then when?” Apollo asks. He tilts his head to the side, leaning on his elbow on the stair behind him. “Mh, aren’t you just your father’s son?” He raises his other hand, and ruffles Will’s hair. “I knew you hadn’t only taken my dazzling beauty!”

Will blushes even more, curling more around Valentina. “Please don’t.”

“Alright, alright. Let’s go back to Clovis. What annoys you about him?” He looks around, checking to see whether they are alone, and leans towards Will to speak in a quieter voice. “Is it the hair? Because I must admit, it really is kept badly. Oh wait, weren’t you talking of a necklace?”

Will clears his throat. “Yes. I was saying that he doesn’t separate from it, and even today, we met with Clovis, and he asked Nico whether his bedroom problems had been resolved. And I wonder what type of bedroom _problems_.”

Apollo’s gaze darkens, his jaw sticks out even more. “If he is bedding that Clovis–”

Will rolls his eyes. “As if. Nico isn’t like that. When we were married, almost all the time we spent together, we were working. He wouldn’t have the time.” He snorts, with unmistakable fondness. “And Nico is so dense, he didn’t realize _I_ loved him, and we were married. Clovis would have to spell it out for him.”

Apollo chuckles. “So what are you worried about?”

“That’s the point. I don’t know.”

“Well, you should talk about it, because I know that in just a few minutes, your prince will enter the gardens, and find you here.”

“Have you seen it?”

Apollo cocks an eyebrow, and doesn’t respond. He takes Valentina from Will’s arms, kissing his head, and leaves him to wait.

Will is sitting on the stairs, with his knees hugged to his chest. He looks so small there, basking into the sunlight, his face so relaxed he could be sleeping. Nico stops before him, clearing his throat. Will doesn’t even open his eyes, only humming.

“Rachel couldn’t see the future either, I’ve been told by Annabeth and Percy. And I just met Jason, who was talking with your father. They told me about your father’s dreams, the part they could talk about, at least. I suppose we can only wait, now.”

Will finally raises his head, and for a moment Nico wishes he wouldn’t have, as it is far too distracting. “Has Clovis managed to help you?”

“He couldn’t talk to my father either,” Nico says. He raises his hand, offering it to Will. “Can we take that walk around the gardens?”

Will gasps. “What a _scandal_ , Your Highness. Shouldn’t we call a chaperone?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Will chuckles, finally taking Nico’s hand. They walk through the gardens, hand-in-hand, and for once the gods listen to Nico’s prayers, and there’s no one around. He lets go of Will’s hand to put his arm around his waist.

“This statue is for Lee,” Will says, stopping in front of a marble statue of a boy, with an arrow knocked on his bow, which isn’t aiming at anything, only pointing at the ground. He isn’t looking for an enemy. His face is turned to the left. Will leans against Nico’s shoulder. “There’s another for Michael a few feet from here.”

Gems decorate the plaque, where the boy’s name is written, with the year of his birth and that of his death. The gems are the same colors as the flowers around them: orange, yellow and red.

“It’s very beautiful,” Nico says. “And melancholic.”

“I know.” Will sighs, turning to look at Nico, and there’s an emotion in his eyes that Nico wishes to never see again. “Do you miss me?”

“Of course I do,” Nico says. “Every day. The time we spend together in the Dream Lands isn’t half enough. I wish you were in Caere with me.”

Will’s head falls into the crook of Nico’s neck, and his fist tightens around his shirt. “I miss you.”

“There’s something bothering you, isn’t there?” He brings his other hand up to Will’s face, cupping his jaw to raise his head. “Talk to me.”

“Shouldn’t you do the same? You’ve been hiding something.”

Nico’s hand almost falls, and Will’s fingers wrap around his wrist to keep it in place.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he says. He tilts his head to the side, a grimace taking place on his features. “The people of Caere are talking. I didn’t know it, Reyna told me the day after we arrived, and I spent the night with you. It’s why I didn’t come with you to the gardens the day before yesterday. And why we haven’t spent every night together.” He takes a deep breath, and tastes Will’s perfume of oranges on his lips. Will, who doesn’t deserve half the things that have been said about him. “They talk about you, in ways I don’t want to repeat.”

“Oh.” Will is silent for a long moment, then he pinches Nico’s hip, with such strength that he yelps.

“What was that for?”

“Crazy idea, but if you’d told me I would have said that I honestly don’t give a single fuck what they say. Who cares what they think, so long as we know the truth?” Will frowns, taking a half step back. “Maybe you believe those things.”

Nico’s eyes widen, and he scrambles to keep Will close. “What–no! I don’t!”

“Good, then.” Will’s smile is beaming, far more than the sun. “We’ve solved the problem.”

“Are you not annoyed? They talk of you, spread lies about you, about us.”

“I am, but I won’t let it get to me. They don’t know me, it would bother me only if they did, and they still spread lies.” A smile tugs his lips upwards, and Nico is, once again, left breathless. “I’m still going to be their king, someday. If they have something against it, they can put it all up their asses.”

“I’m so in love with you,” Nico blurts out, and he doesn’t even have it in himself to be embarrassed with the way Will laughs.

“Thank you.” Will clears his throat, and steps closer to Nico, until he thinks they are about to kiss. “Now, about the other thing. Who is Clovis?”

Nico furrows his eyebrows. “Clovis? He’s the eldest son of Lord–”

Will rolls his eyes, and his face flushes red. He could be a sun-gem in his free-time, and Nico would say it, if he didn’t already look annoyed. “Not that. To you. What does he do in Caere, with you, in the bedroom.”

“Bedroom?”

“I was right next to you when he asked about your bedroom problems, you know?”

Heat spread over Nico’s cheeks. “I’m–that’s a bit personal.”

“He fancies you.”

“He does not!”

“He does. Now, although I know you don’t fancy him back… you don’t, right?”

“Of course not!”

“Right answer.” Will pats him on the shoulder, swaying a bit on his feet, as though he were about to dance. “Since I know you don’t, I am not angry. A bit affronted, since he showed it as he was under my father’s roof, as I was right next to you, with that stupid-”

Nico scoffs. “Not angry?”

Will sticks his tongue in his cheek. “A bit angry, alright. But I don’t want to be jealous! It’s just that… I don’t know, it somehow feels as though he is living _my_ life.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is beside you, and it should be my life.”

For a long moment, the only sounds are Will’s panting and the birds’ chirping. Nico stays in silence, and so does Will.

Nico isn’t a vocal person, he often prefers keeping things inside, showing them instead of stating them. Rationally, he knows how he shows Will his love. Holding his hand, kissing him, although he isn’t a physical person, and at times it almost feels stiff, especially in the Dream Lands, but he knows it’s something that brings comfort to Will, so he tries. Holding the doors to let Will pass comes far more natural to him, as do helping him mount the horse, buying him gifts. Visiting him in his dreams every night. He wishes he could just show Will all his feelings, as they are not a secret to be kept, and he wishes he knew how.

So he takes a deep breath, and forces himself to speak. “Your life is much more than being beside me, even when I am Prince and you are, or will again be, my consort. You are also my equal. You are the first one I think about whenever something happens to me. The first one I want to talk to.”

Unshed tears shine in Will’s eyes, and fall as soon as Nico’s hand brushes his. Nico is as gentle as he can, when he wipes them off with a featherlike touch.

“I haven’t trusted anyone quite as much as I trust you since my sister’s death. Maybe even before that.”

“I’m sorry,” Will says, his voice breaking Nico’s heart a bit. “I don’t doubt your feelings for me.”

Nico shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. What I mean, is that as much as I miss you and I can’t wait for you to come home, I haven’t tried to fill your place with someone else. My duties have been keeping me occupied, and Hazel tries, too. She knows how much I miss you. I think she misses Frank the same way. Reyna told me the same longing resides in our eyes when we are looking south.”

“Siblings bonding over similar pain,” Will comments, only a sliver of delight in his voice.

Nico snorts. “I guess so, yeah. Clovis… he isn’t there to fill your place. It’s a Will-shaped void. In your absence, I’d much rather keep _that_ beside me, than people trying to fit in it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Nico shakes his head again. He knows how hard it is for Will to talk about the things bothering him, especially when they are so serious.

“But there is something I’ve been keeping from you,” Nico admits. There’s no surprise on Will’s face. “I am having some issues with my powers over the Dream Land. The increasing activity has made my defenses from some–some _things_ that I met when I was traveling through Tartarus fall.” He looks down, as Will’s hands cup his. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to meet you there as much again.”

Will plays with Nico’s fingers, a soft spark of understanding and–almost–relief in his eyes. “We can find other ways to communicate, ways that don’t put your health in risk. Until you are completely fine again, we will only use letters. And if you can never use those powers again, we will just have to wait until we are together again to see each other.”

“I _will_ use my powers again.”

Will smiles, softly and adoring. “There’s not much longer until my studies come to an end. Master Chiron has talked to my professor. He said I will finish before my other companions.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Will blushes, groaning and telling Nico to not be so cheesy. Nico only laughs.

At the lunch table on the balcony, Reyna is talking to Will’s father and Hyacinthus, Valentina asleep already in Daphne’s arms. Jonathan, Kayla and Meg are on the floor, enjoying themselves as Percy plays with water, making all kinds of shapes. Annabeth smiles beside him, with her head on his shoulder, a hand on her belly. Jason comes as they do, and a greeting smile begins to blossom on Will’s lips, when Nico feels it.

Shadows, behind him, calling him. The pain in the back of his head, that has been sleeping for too long, waking up and screaming, the pain curling under his skin. He stumbles in his steps, throwing Will beside himself. He doesn’t have his sword on, but he has a dagger inside his right boot.

The shadows open, to reveal one of the Royal Guards of Aita.

“Il re si è caduto,” he says. “Vostra Altezza, dovete tornare a casa e riprendere il trono. Il Concilio ha imprigionato vostra sorella Hazel, e la Regina non può sedere sul trono da sola. La Corona è vostra da prendere.”

Nico doesn’t have time to think it over. He turns, takes Will in one last time, the way his eyebrows are furrowing, the shimmering confusion in his eyes, but also the sun always kissing him reverently, as though it were shining just for him. He takes him in, and there is no time to avoid the heartbreak.

“I’m sorry, Will,” he says, squeezing his hand. “Remember what I told you.”

Reyna calls him, so does Percy. Jason talks, too, but Nico is already throwing the shadows over himself, Reyna and the guard.

The cold seeps into Nico’s veins. The River Styx is flowing imperious behind him, as though feeling the dangers of the kingdom, and the gods’ wrath were passing through it.

The words the guard has spoken echo in Nico’s heartbeat.

_The King has fallen . Your Highness, you need to come home and take back your father’s throne. The Council has imprisoned your sister Hazel, and the Queen can’t sit on the throne alone. The Crown is yours to take._


	6. scappiamo insieme

The night is dark around Nico. He runs and he runs, and each step he takes is one step further from Will. Other footsteps echo behind his own. He stumbles on the roots of the trees, falling and scraping the palms of his hands, but pain is only a breath hissed through gritted teeth as he stands again.

A hand falls on his shoulder. It’s Reyna, panting like him, her knees slightly bent. She squeezes his shoulder, keeping him in place, and even if the blood is boiling in his veins, Nico stops to listen to her.

“Do not take another step,” she says, raising her index to his chest. “Not until we have a plan worth risking your life for.”

“Those bastards of the Council have my sister imprisoned,” Nico replies, his voice void of any emotion but anger. “The throne is mine by blood, and they can’t do anything about it.”

Reyna shakes her head. “Come on, let’s not play fools with one another. They won’t just let you walk through the doors, especially if they have imprisoned Hazel.” She squeezes Nico’s shoulder again, but this time it’s enough to hurt. He shrugs her hand off. “We don’t know what has happened,” she reminds him.

So Nico turns to the guard, a raised eyebrow, slowly regaining breath. When the guard’s eyes meet his, they show a different darkness to the one around them.

“It was a bloodshed, Your Highness,” he finally says. “It was a damned bloodshed. His Majesty the King was having dinner with Her Majesty the Queen and Her Highness Princess Hazel. I was on duty by the window, when I noticed a movement in the gardens, exactly as the bell rang in alarm. I escorted Her Majesty the Queen and Her Highness the Princess to safety, and when the bells rang again, we went to the throne room, but no one was there.

“It was a coven of witches. They had attacked the Palace, and they managed to get the King. I don’t know the details, as I wasn’t present. My Captain is loyal to you, Your Highness, and he sent me to retrieve you, as the Her Highness the Princess was accused of witchery, and brought to the dungeons. When Her Majesty the Queen tried to protect the Princess, she was – she was given no choice but to step aside.”

If possible, Nico’s voice turns even colder, as shadows run up and down his arms. “What did they do.”

The guard shakes his head. “They gave her no choice,” he repeats, and Nico doesn’t have enough time to wait for him to be ready to give information.

Reyna exhales shakily. “We need to put the Crown on your head before someone else gets to it faster.”

“The Council already has,” Nico interrupts her. Only when he doesn’t find his sword, does he realize he has brought his hand to his hip. He curls his fingers in his fist. “I need them to get the Crown.”

“Not them,” Reyna says. She starts walking at a fast pace, almost a run. “The gods’ blessing. The Priestesses have the Crown of Shadows.”

Nico tilts his head to the side, following her. “It isn’t for me to take. Let’s say I went to the Priestesses, avoiding the part about getting the Council’s approval, and they might even choose me, if the Council haven’t bribed them already. The Crown of Shadows is not for me to take. Only the gods are strong enough to wear it.”

Nico must have run further than he realized earlier, because the trees are lessening, and before he knows it, they are in front of the walls to the city. The lights of the Palace show the black, mourning vessels hanging from the windows, matching the ones on the gates.

Reyna doesn’t stop, walking backwards until she is out of the tree line, raising her hands as though in prayer. “And you are the only man I know, arrogant enough to challenge the gods. That must mean something now.”

Despite himself, a grin pulls Nico’s lips upwards. To know he has Reyna on his side, gives him far more courage than anything else. He pats a tree, for no real reason, and takes the last step from the darkness to the light.

“I’ll attract less attention if I go to the temple alone,” Nico says.

“You’ll attract attention regardless of it,” Reyna says. “There’s a curfew on times as hard as this, it’s already a wonder why the city isn’t in lockdown.”

“Like they are waiting for me to go in,” Nico concludes for her, staring at the gates as though they were his enemy. Maybe they are. If it were for him, he realizes, he would have stridden in, convinced that the Council would have no other choice but to give him the Crown. He is lucky he has Reyna. Nico takes a deep breath, which reminds him that they don’t have a plan still, and his time has run out before he knew there was a limit. “If you pass through the Mausoleum, you’ll find a secret passageway to the Palace. You’ll end up in the old quarters I shared with Hazel, from there you get to the guards. Tell Hedge to get my sister out.” Nico stops, his throat burning, and closes his eyes for a moment. “Make him bring her South, Lady Lou Ellen with her.”

“How South?” The guard asks.

“Go to Lord Apollo,” Nico says. The ground sways under his feet, but it can’t knock him down now. “Will won’t turn either of them away.”

Reyna nods. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

“Even if I manage to take the Crown, it won’t be until dawn that I sit on the throne. Tell Hedge not to wait for another word. I have already given my orders.”

A dark skinned Priestess sits cross legged behind the door. She looks at the Prince in front of her, wondering why she should make him King instead of waiting for someone better.

Shadows melt from the walls. Not to give fear, but to protect, and she follows their path with her gaze. They stop under the Prince’s feet. Did he call upon them, or is protecting him their own decision?

“I wasn’t given the crown you want, boy,” the Priestess finally says, breaking the heavy silence. No noise comes from the city, as if only they and the shadows have remained. “The only crown we have, is not for mortal men to wear.”

The Prince raises an eyebrow, the picture of arrogance and bundled up confidence. “How would you know, if no one has ever tried?”

“It will tie you to the kingdom.”

“With any crown on my head, I would be tied to it. To be King means falling with your kingdom, and triumphing with it. I know which one I want.”

The Priestess stays silent. Is the Prince’s head ready for the Crown? She looks behind his shoulder, where countless souls are, mourning for their King’s fall. He isn’t ready, she knows that. But there is no one else, and he is the only one who has stepped forward.

“If you fail,” she talks slowly, so that he has no choice but to give her his full attention. “Your sister will fall with you, and so will everyone you care about. They’ll be slaughtered, you know that, don’t you? And you are willingly to risk all of them, only to put a crown on your head, be called King and gain a few more enemies, that will do anything in and beyond their power to destroy you.”

“Everyone I care about is at risk already, a sharpened dagger has drawn blood at my family’s throat.” The shadows thrum. There’s no other word for it, they _thrum_ by sensing his anger alone, seething at the possibility of calling other souls to them, and adding to their darkness, protecting their Prince even more. If he lets go of them, the whole city will be doomed. “The Crown you can put on my head is the only thing that may protect them.”

“Even if you survive, the Crown of Shadow doesn’t stay with you forever,” the Priestess says. “Wear it to take the Throne, then bring it back, or the gods’ fury will fall upon you.”

The Prince – almost King now – bows his head, in a rare show of humility. “I accept your terms.”

It’s a long process, and so painful Nico doesn’t care to remember much of it. There are times when he is sure he won’t survive, and Hazel will have to take the Crown.

At some point, he is on the bridge between the garden of the gods and the tower again, the Southern breeze on his skin, reminding him that, if he gets through it all, he will have proved himself worthy to Will’s family. The Chosen is in front of him, with his finger pointing to his chest, the pain in the back of his head forgotten, if only for a moment of false peace.

But then there’s Aita’s cold seeping to his bones, the shadows coating him in. At the corner of the room, as he screams at the top of his lungs, is a long and dark figure, standing with their arm hooked in King Hades’. They could even pass for siblings, or so Nico thinks, his father and Death, with their countless faces.

Death raises their hand in greeting and goodbye.

Nico is a field, yellowish grass with the wind around him. He lays there for a long time, his mind blank, looking up at the sky. He bends his knees, and tries to bring his hands on his belly, but they are both interlaced with someone else’s.

On one side there’s Hazel, whose other hand is holding Persephone’s, then, as if in chain, Maria, although she has never met the first, and then Bianca. The four of them, as if they have tried it a hundred times before, smile at the same time. Nico can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from them. That’s what he wanted when he was young, wasn’t it? He wanted his mother, Bianca and Persephone together and happy, and if he’d known of Hazel when he was so little, he would have wanted her with them, too.

Maybe he looks at them too long, because his other hand is tugged, and when he turns, there’s Will, whose eyes are the color of the sky above them and some more. They hold promises of a future together, in which they always find one another again. Nico brings their joint hands to his mouth, and kisses the back of Will’s.

Behind them, kids’ laughter resonates. Will arches his neck, and laughs too. Nico loses himself in the curve of his neck, the twinkling sound he emits. He understands why the gods put the world in such danger for love, he thinks.

The ground under him doesn’t open, but he falls.

Hades rests his back on the oak behind him, a knee bent to his chest, the other leg extended on the uneven ground in front of him. His dark crown is crooked on his head, but he hasn’t abandoned it, yet.

Nico sits beside him. His father is cold, even if they aren’t touching, it comes to Nico’s body, too. Because he is dying, as his mind unhelpfully supplies.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Nico says, ignoring the hole in his chest.

Hades doesn’t even seem to notice him. He almost blends in with the tree itself, looking so peaceful even in his dark robes. Nico follows his gaze, and realizes with a startle that he hasn’t even recognized the gardens behind the King and Queen’s rooms.

“I used to watch you from there,” Hades says, as if he is continuing a phrase Nico hasn’t heard, gesturing to the balcony of the King’s quarters. Déjà vu washes over Nico. “I often wondered if you children would play here as well. I imagined it; yours, Bianca’s and Hazel’s children, running around the castle.”

They have already had this conversation. And Nico hears his own voice resonating in the air, without coming from his mouth. It says that Hades’ visions have turned to smoke, and Nico sees pain flashing through his father’s eyes, too strong to come from his imagination. Not the pain of the parent that wants their kids to follow into an already chosen path, but that of the parent that has left their kids to take their own decisions, and sees them stumbling and rejecting help.

“What? What exactly do you see?” Nico’s voice yells.

“I see that you are two fools!” Hades yells back. The shadows melt a bit father from them, they wouldn’t know who to choose in a conflict.

 _Not true,_ a voice supplies, so cold it can only be Death that looks back at Nico, hood raised over their head. _They would choose to protect you. It would be your father’s wish as well._

Nico’s eyes dart to the little boy standing not far from him and his father, and their yelling is drawn out from the emotion that rushes through his chest, sheer and pure joy he can’t remember ever feeling before. The boy’s dark and wavy hair are ruffled by the breeze; his cheeks are dusted in pink. He has his index finger in his mouth, as Will often does when he concentrates.

Three little dark-skinned girls, whose Oriental dark eyes shine with kindness and cleverness, and they chase each other, screaming and laughing. The boy rushes to them, his own giggles echo in the wind.

Farther from them are standing three adults, whose faces Nico can’t make out, but his heart loudly screams their names. Hazel, her cheek squished against Frank’s forearm, the only place she reaches without standing on her tiptoes. Is there any need to say the last man’s name? He holds a toddler in his arms, cooing quietly at his sleeping face, when a girl, that barely reaches his hip, tugs as his belt, asking to be lifted as well, her arms outstretched.

Laughter shines on Will’s face – an adult’s face – along with the same passion that has accompanied him through his youth. He turns to the dark figure standing on the patio of the King’s balcony. It’s strange, for Nico, to recognize his older self.

Even without hearing his words, Nico knows what he says.

_A little help, Your Majesty?_

He is the only one allowed to call Nico’s title with such mock, such irreverence.

Even as King, Nico can’t deny him a thing, and he goes running for his husband, complaints so loud the are heard from the gods themselves.

The mausoleum is cold when Nico passes through it. Not a ghost leaves their tomb, none of his father’s predecessor dare to.

Hades, Zeus and Poseidon. The three brothers born with the greatest power, that killed their tyrant father, emperor of many, many lands. After their battle, they divided the empire in three parts, to each brother his own to maintain. Zeus had taken the lands of wind, with mountains of peaks so high, where the wind was so strong, no silence was ever known. Poseidon had taken the southern lands, closer to the sea, and the palace half-submersed by the waters. Lastly, Hades accepted to rule over the northern lands, the vaster part, cold and lonely. He had to fight his father’s old allies, forcing them off the lands of Aita, forcing them into the lonely lands of Tartarus.

It is strange being in the Palace, knowing it isn’t every bit of his as it used to. The sky is clearing, and the guards’ quarters are already filled with loyal men. Except for Hedge.

“They have already left, Your Highness,” Reyna quietly tells him. She eyes the crown on his head. “What have you given them in exchange for that?”

“I’m not sure,” Nico responds. “I can’t remember much of the ritual. I was passed out for most of it. I may have seen everything I’ve lost, though.”

Nico sits on the throne alone. The plain is easy, not hard to follow, yet dangerous. He sits there, and since he has the guards’ and most of his generals’ alliance, the Council can choose between completing his coronation and fighting.

It’s unorthodox, having the gods’ approval before the Council’s. Not that he has any intention of keeping it with him. He despises the three men much more than he should care to admit.

The sky is pink when the Council arrives in the throne room. All its three members are present: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. Queen Persephone is standing beside them, and she covers her mouth with her hands when she sees Nico sitting on his father’s throne. No, not his father’s anymore. She wears black, their house’s colors, not the white of loss and mourning.

Shadows falls from the walls, the sun-gems on the ceiling flicker. The storms are becoming more and more frequent, soon a last one will put an end to Spring.

“Word of my father’s fate has reached me,” Nico says, his voice carefully stern. He leans back in his throne, appearing older than he really is. “The gods have already accepted me as King.”

Persephone breaks from the Council. She gathers her gowns in her hands, half-running up the stairs to the throne. The guards stop her with their spears, but Nico raises a hand, gesturing for them to let her through. Reyna’s shoulders relax. His father was the first to tell Nico to always present their enemies with a strong, united front. Had it been safe for Hazel to stay, a throne would have been prepared for her.

Persephone kneels in front of the throne, so close her breath hits Nico’s knees.

“He isn’t dead,” she whispers, barely an audible breath. “He isn’t dead yet. He was injured, and fell ill, and they are doing the possible to give him the last push to his grave.”

“Are there guards with him?” Nico whispers back, leaning forward and putting his hands on her shoulders. To anyone else, it just seems like a son giving refuge to his mother.

“Only the shadows.”

Nico nods, leaning back. It will have to do for now. He looks over at the Council, raising his eyebrow. He plays with the ring on his middle finger, shining black under the lights. “You should kneel to your King Regent,” he says, pronouncing the words slowly. “Unless you have any objection to that.”

The shadows fall down the steps, resembling melting flames. Midas takes a step back when they linger near him. He drops to his knees, quickly followed by the other judges.

Hades is laying limp in his bed. His chest raises and falls evenly. Nico has never seen him sleeping, but one might think he is. Persephone, sitting on the chair next to the bed, sniffles.

“Will he awake?” Nico asks the court physician.

The man shakes his head. “His life seems to come from the shadows themselves, Your Majesty,” he says. “Your father is very weak. His life is frail.”

“I see,” Nico says. He can’t even look at his father, it’s too weird and strange to see someone he knew – still knows, in some hopeful part of himself – to be strong, looking like a dead thing. “I’ve been told that he was cursed. Would a witch be able to heal him?”

The court physician looks around, nervous to speak of such matters. Only when he realizes that they are, indeed, still alone, does he talk. “It wasn’t a simple curse, Your Majesty. Only the witch that did it, may be able to break it. Or one powerful enough not to bend their knee to anyone else’s rules.”

None of the witches were captured. It’s illogical, to think of it. How could they come in and out of the castle? They have to have had some help from the inside. While he was enjoying life in Delphi, someone was conspiring against his family.

“You will stay near my father’s bed, day and night,” Nico says, his voice low and colder than the night sky. “If anyone asks you of the King’s conditions, you will tell them that he is getting better by the day, and that the gods have told you as much in your dreams.”

“You should consider ending your engagement to Prince Nico,” Daphne says softly, brushing her hand through Will’s hair.

For less than a second, Will stops his reading. He is studying in the Palace of Gold’s library, and he wishes he hadn’t come. It’s been three days since Nico left with a guard, and no one knows what has happened in Aita. They are still waiting for a messenger.

In the meantime, Will buries himself in books. This way, he can distract himself, instead of letting his mind roam dangerous paths. As the dark circles under his eyes can attest, he isn’t doing a good job of keeping calm. When night falls, there’s nothing stopping him from seeking refuge in the shadows, hoping, dying to have answers to his questions.

“You knew he would become King when you formed this alliance,” Will says, his voice not quivering, despite the burning in his veins.

“Not under these circumstances,” she replies. She leans on the armrest of the soft and old armchair Will is sitting on, smoothing her gowns. “I only say this for your own good.”

“I know,” Will says. “It’s the only reason I’m not asking you to leave yet. I’m worried about my fiancé’s well-being, and his family’s. I have no time to also worry about you and father thinking I should find love elsewhere. Again.”

“I haven’t talked to your father about it, yet. I wanted to speak to you first.”

“Now you have, and I’ve given you an answer.”

“If he is King, he will ask for you to be brought to him, to secure his alliance with us and Zeus as soon as possible. You will marry into a family with a target over its head.”

“It was Royal Family of Aita the first time I married into it. Nico being King instead of Hades won’t change it.”

“They were afraid of Hades, Nico is a boy!” Daphne exclaims. “He isn’t ready to take the Crown, your father himself told me of the Chosen. Doesn’t it scare you? Knowing that the gods themselves are against him?”

“They aren’t against him.” Will grits his teeth, his vision becoming blurred for a few seconds. “He isn’t ready, but Persephone is with him, and so is Reyna.”

“Royals aren’t much different from sharks. As soon as they smell blood, they are going to dive in the waters, and Aita will be nothing more than a memory, its King with it.”

Will stops breathing. He looks at Daphne, eyes filled with something more than sorrow and desperation, expectation filling his body. Her chest raises and falls quickly.

Before she can apologize, however, the doors open. There’s Austin on the doorstep, panting and with his hands on his knees, trying to regain breath.

“There’s – there’s Lord – Lord Hermes here – with news – news from Aita.”

Will stands, the book in his lap falls to the floor, and the sound resonates in the silence, but he can’t worry about that. He doesn’t realize he is running until he risks falling on his ass, and even then, he doesn’t stop until he has reached his father’s study.

The doors open with a loud bang, hitting the walls. Luckily, only his father and Rachel are with Lord Hermes. Lord Hermes isn’t dressed formally, and usually Will would snicker a bit at his attire, the white toga and golden sandals with wings.

Will sits beside his father on the sofa. His heart is in his throat, for more than the physical effort. Lord Hermes doesn’t seem surprised to see him, neither do the others. They probably also already know how Nico is, what has happened to Aita.

If there’s one thing that has really surprised Will, is that he doesn’t only worry for Nico and the Royal Family, but also for Aita. It’s a worry he has already felt during the war, but it was only for his own people. Now Aita’s people are becoming his own.

Distinctly, Will recognizes that Lord Hermes is greeting him, but he doesn’t bother responding.

“What news do you bring?” Apollo asks him, putting his arm around Will’s shoulders.

Lord Hermes is sitting on the other sofa, Rachel alone on the armchair in front of the fireplace. Her hair is the same color as the flames behind her, and she looks every bit the dangerous Oracle of Delphi.

“I could tell you,” Lord Hermes says. “But I won’t. Here, let me show it to you.”

He drops a glass marble on the table, and it begins.

Nico is walking down the hallway, cape with fur flowing behind his every step, and a crown darker than any shadow on his head. Each time Will blinks, the shadows seem to shift.

Nico wears the color of his house, the emblem itself on the chest, where his heart is, and on the ring on his finger.

No one walks beside him, there’s an empty place for his consort. For Will. Reyna is behind him, with the Queen next to her, looking strong in the face of grief. There’s a buzzing in the Palace, and it takes Will a moment or two to realize the reason. It isn’t a part of the Palace often used, but the one closer to the Announcement Square, whose gates are only opened when an announcement has to be made, usually about the introduction of a new law. Last time it was used by the King, was when Kronos rebelled.

When Will went to Aita for the first time, he had already been engaged to Nico for more than a year. If it had been news, they would have announced it together from the balcony.

The doors to the balcony are still closed, but voices already come from the square. The people are growing impatient. They must have heard more about what has happened in the Palace than Will has.

“Are you ready?” Reyna quietly asks Nico, as two guards wait for his signal to open the doors.

“The Chosen have already answered that for me,” Nico replies with the same tone. Persephone doesn’t look surprised. She must have been told, although probably from Reyna rather than Nico. “Open the doors.”

“Good luck,” Persephone whispers.

If the flicker in Nico’s eyes is anything to go by, he has heard her. A bell rings, quiet descends upon the square. The doors are opened.

The sun is covered by a cloud. Not a good omen, but Nico’s crown is made of pure shadows, isn’t it? He is King of Shadows. He raises his hands in the air, greeting his people, holding their attention. Not even his rings catch the light. A shiver runs down Will’s spine, and it only becomes worse when he notices the thin layer of sweat coating Nico’s forehead.

“My people,” he says, dropping his hands. “This day, I shall be bringer of terrible words. Our King, my dearest father, has been attacked by enemy’s hands. However, much like his kingdom, he is far stronger than those who lurk in our shadows, only waiting to strike. Death hasn’t taken our King yet, and as we wait for him to come back to us, the gods have given me the Crown of Shadows to wear.”

The people erupt. Will himself is stunned. He knows Nico is strong, has known for years, but the Crown of Shadows? That’s beyond strong. That’s something only gods should have the power of having. The very thought makes Will shiver.

Nico raises his hands again, dark shadows draping over his fingers for a moment, and Will wonders whether it truly is the sun being covered by a cloud, or Nico’s own doing.

“Worry not, my people, for the gods haven’t left our lands.” He drops his hands on the railing, looking older than he is, cleverer than someone his age ought to be. “With each pray, we remind our gods that we do not fear death. We celebrate life instead. As we wait for my father to return, I ask this of you: each day, remember my father’s laws. Remember the love he has always held for you, his loyal people, and stay united. We are all one and together in this, not only as kingdom, but as family. As we wait for our King’s return, we must take care of our home, the lands others find so dangerous. They are filled with fear just by speaking of them.” Nico smirks, but his amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. Will prays the people below can’t see it. “I must ask you, will you accept me to wear my father’s Crown, and sit on his throne, so that I can protect you from what has tried to bring us down, and free _our_ shadows of such cowards?”

Again, the people erupt.

Will blinks, and he isn’t in Aita anymore. His father is sitting next to him, his arm heavy on his shoulders. The chaos of the crowd has been replaced by the sweet melody played by the satyrs and the nymphs’ kind voices from the gardens. He can still feel eyes watching him from the Crown of Shadows.

“Hades isn’t dead,” is all Will can say.

“Not yet,” Lord Hermes says. “He’s a hard bastard to kill.”

“So Nico…?” Will starts, without finding an end to the question. He isn’t even sure what his question is.

“He is alright,” Lord Hermes says. He leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “The Boy-King they call him, but he isn’t King yet. King Regent, ruling with his step-mother, Queen Persephone.”

“Hazel?” Will asks. “Is she alright?”

“She has disappeared,” Lord Hermes reveals softly. “The King has fallen after an attack to the Palace. Some say it was witches, others that it was a company of Kings from the northern archipelagoes.”

“They might have taken the Princess with them,” Lord Apollo says.

Will freezes. Hazel. Sweet, lovely, kind Hazel being a slave for brutal men. He blinks his tears away. _Not now_ , he prays. _Not now._

“I don’t think so,” Lord Hermes says, talking in a lower voice. He has been friends with Apollo for many years. “A little birdie told me that she was in a safe place with the Queen during the attack, and was closed in her rooms afterwards. My guess is that the Boy-King brought her out of the Palace, to some safe refugee. The cottage, probably.” For a moment his eyes flicker to Will, before they return to Apollo, a clear spark of mischief in them. “The true question is, will that shift Zeus’ most powerful Duke with Aita? Of course, the sooner Hades dies, the sooner the Crown is on your son’s head.”

Apollo raises an eyebrow. “I already know _when_ the Crown will be on my son’s head.” He leans back in his seat, looking every bit smug and triumphant. “And I would put much more trust in the King Regent of Aita than you seem to do, Hermes.”

Lord Hermes bows his head. “As you prefer to tell yourself.”

“I don’t need to tell myself anything,” Apollo responds. “The gods let me see stories which have not unfolded yet.”

A wicked smile stretches on Lord Hermes’ lips. “And have you seen Prince Triton falling sick?”

Apollo raises an eyebrow, a matching smile to Hermes’ falling easily on his face. “What do you think? When Perseus becomes Crown Prince of Nepthun, send him my best wishes.”

Hades never shows signs of getting better. At least he isn’t getting worse either. Nico can’t use his powers to travel in the Dream Lands. He sits alone, in this palace of bones, with only ghosts to keep him company. When he closes his eyes, the vivid memory of flower-crowns sitting on blond hair lulls him to sleep.

It’s in the first days of Summer that the bells ring. It’s morning still, and the sky is just painting in stripes of pink. Will bolts from his bed, stumbling in his sheets and rolling to the ground still tangled in them. Kayla groans, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“What is it?” She asks, her words all slurred together.

“The bells,” Will says, putting clothes on. “They rang.”

“Cool,” she mutters, returning in the warmth of the bed. “Wake me up if we’re being killed. Or not. Whatever.”

There aren’t guards in the corridors, and Will finds Austin near his rooms, still in his nightclothes. In the past months, his siblings have taken to sleeping in bed with him, to be sure that he rests despite the stress. Will prefers not to dwell too much onto it, his pride is already bruised enough as it is.

They are in the halls when a familiar voice reaches Will’s ears. He doesn’t recognize the owner, at least not until they turn around the corner, and he sees the small party of people.

There’s Chiron, trying his best to calm down a very tempered Captain Hedge, whose short arms are waving up and down, closed in fists. Lord Apollo is giving them his back, as he talks to two other people, whose faces are covered by hoods. Will falters in his steps.

Those curls. He’d recognize them anywhere.

“Hazel?” He calls. And the other girl turns as well. “Lou Ellen?” He doesn’t realize he’s running, but he crashes into them, or them into him, holding each other for dear life.

Will holds them at arm length, pushing them both back a little. They don’t look hurt, but there’s dirt on their faces, clothes and skin. They are too skinny, they need food. Lou Ellen’s cheeks are strained with tears.

“Nico said you wouldn’t turn us away,” Hazel whispers.

 _Nico._ “Of course I wouldn’t,” Will mutters, more to himself than in answer. “How are you two? You need food. Were you – did the attackers get to you? Who even were they?”

Captain Hedge’s eyes lock on Will. “That is something that will be discussed in a much more private setting.”

The walk to the parlor is surreal. Hazel’s hand slips in Will’s. “Is my brother King?” She asks quietly.

Will nods. “King Regent. He wore the Crown of Shadows.”

“Gods.” She shakes her head in awe, a small smile slipping on her face. “Have you heard anything from him?”

“No. I only know from my father that he is doing well. They called him Boy-King to mock him, but now they seem scared to pronounce his name.”

“What has he done to the attackers?” She asks. “Do you know if they were caught?”

“I don’t know. No one seems to know most things. Persephone is ruling next to him. He isn’t alone, but I wish – I wish we were with him.”

“My father…?”

“Last I heard, he was still alive. Nico, uh, in his speech he said your father gets better by the day. He’ll survive.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Hazel says. “I’m more worried about _what_ he’ll come back as.”

In the Autumn, Will has finished his studies. Words come of a Northern King that has brought his ships on the shoreline of Aita, and managed to raid three temples. However, King _Nicholas_ has destroyed him.

“Nicholas,” Hazel mutters when they hear the story for the first time. “It wasn’t supposed to be his name, you know? Maria had chosen another. Niccolò. Niccolò di Angelo. But it reminded the people of the North, where Caere is, too much of his mother’s origins, so they changed it to Nicholas.”

“Everyone calls him Nico, anyway,” Austin says.

Will already knows the story, so he isn’t surprised when Hazel says, “That’s because his origins are part of him. It’s the compromise between the two names, isn’t it? Niccolò, Nicholas, Nico.” She narrows her eyes, letting her pin drop. She looks over at Lou Ellen, then the tapestries hanging from the walls. She locks eyes with Lou Ellen again, and there’s a knowing look in the latter’s eyes. “I want to learn witchcraft. It’s time to learn, isn’t it?”

It’s almost winter when two letters from Nico reach Delphi. One for Will, the other for Hazel. It has his heart racing in his throat, the world turns and spins around him. He reads it by the lake. Once, then twice, and when he goes back to the Palace, he and Hazel take a decision together.

It’s in the first days of Spring that Will, Hazel, Lou Ellen and Captain Hedge leave Delphi. Will looks behind, hugging his siblings. Valentina doesn’t understand what is happening, but she cries anyway.

“Be brave,” is the last thing Apollo tells him.

Will smiles. They leave, and he doesn’t let himself look back.

On the boat to Caere no one knows their identity. Word doesn’t come often from Aita and Will has only caught glimpse of Nico once or twice in his dreams. Every time, before they could reach one another, shadows fell on Nico.

“He’s a good King,” the captain of the ship tells them about him. “My daughter, she’s a witch. Took after her mother, but she died in childbirth, and never told me. Can’t blame her. She died thinking our daughter would have to hide like her, I think, but the King is good. He’s doing good things for witches.”

“And his father?” Hazel asks. “Does anybody know of his fate?”

Last they heard from Nico, he had found the witches responsible for the attack. They were dead to the world, he wrote. Somehow, Will doubts _dead to the world_ and a plain _dead_ are the same thing.

“King Hades.” The captain shrugs. “Some say he is with the gods. Not dead, but taking a time to see the Heavens.”

Will’s heart constricts. There is a selfish part of him that only thinks of his own grief. He and Nico were supposed to have until Nico’s 25th birthday, then Nico would become King. Before that, they would have their own life, despite the promise of wearing the Crown. If Hades dies, they’ll have to wait until their own child is 25, and isn’t that a terrible burden to give the child?

“Is the King still engaged to the son of the Lord of Delphi?” Hazel asks.

Will throws her a confused glance. Of course he is. They would have known far before this Captain, if anything had changed. Will is wearing his wedding ring under his shirt, hanging from a necklace Michael gifted him.

“I think so, yes,” the Captain says. He looks around, before leaning closer to them, and dropping his voice lower. “Some say he’s got a harem of lovers in the Palace now.”

Will almost bursts out laughing, and Hazel subtly pinches his side. He just can’t imagine Nico, who treats him like he is sent by the gods themselves, to ever do something like that to him. They have hurt each other in the past, that much is true, but it is even truer that they have grown since then, both together and on their own. They aren’t the boys they were.

“Forgive my amusement, sir,” Will says. “I’m from the South, born and raised here, and it just sounds strange to me, that the Northers I’ve always been taught are so cold, could ever have a harem of lovers. Especially their King.”

The Captain shrugs. “We are passionate lovers, too.”

Will blushes to the tip of his ears, as Hazel chuckles quietly beside him. He looks down at the waters of the fjord. Hopefully, Hazel won’t tell Nico about this.

“Don’t you think the stars are brighter tonight?” Nico asks Reyna, leaning against the railing. They are on the balcony of the King and Queen’s quarters. “Maybe it’s just my impression.”

“Or maybe the gods are telling us that the King is getting better,” Reyna responds. She sounds just as tired as Nico feels. “Let’s hope for the better.”

“The more we hope, the more disappointed we will be, when tomorrow comes, and I am still on the throne,” Nico says.

“You are King, Nico. If you don’t have hope, how will your people?” Reyna sighs, resting her folded arms on the rail. “Just yesterday you talked to the Council of your hopes for your father.”

“My false hopes.” His heart constricts in his chest, but Nico pushes past it, to get the words to leave his mouth, even if they leave a bitter taste on his tongue as soon as he speaks them. “My father is dead. I don’t know how much longer we can fake it. I fear the day I’ll have to come clean about it.”

“His heart is still beating,” Reyna says, her voice dropping even lower. “He hasn’t lost weight since he fell asleep. Time hasn’t passed for him. He is still alive.”

“Alive? You call sleeping for months – _months_ – being alive? He is dead. Dead!” Nico tightens his hold on the railing. His voice breaks, but it doesn’t stop him. “Death stays in his room every day, like a friend visiting another! There’s nothing left to do. We should just push a pillow on his face and stop this madness. It’s what he would have wanted.”

“But it’s not what we need. We need to have your father behind you, until the Council can’t take the throne from you. If you want your sister to have a place to come back to, that is. Otherwise, we shall proceed with your patricide, and let the Council execute you for treason.”

Nico turns back to the stars. The day has been heavy for him, as many others have been, and the stars are the only ones who don’t seem to judge him. He doesn’t dream often, when he does it’s beyond his control of the Land of Dreams, and it always is about gentle words and kind blue eyes, the future they deserved.

“You should retire, Lady Reyna,” Nico says.

“So should you.”

For many more hours, neither of them does.

Will would have thought that sneaking into the Palace would have been harder. There always used to be many guards around, whenever he turned around the corner he risked running into one. He remembers them bowing, looking at him and Nico as though they were gods descended from the Heavens. Now, he and Hazel enter from a secret passage in the Mausoleum, and no one sees – or at least stops – them.

The night is dark, and the stars brighter than ever. Will can’t help the way his heart stutters whenever he turns, longing to find Nico soon. They haven’t been so close in too long. He’s tucked the letter Nico sent him weeks ago in the pocket of his pants. He often finds himself fidgeting with the folder, and it seems to be the only thing ground him.

“I’d forgotten how cold it still is here,” Hazel says, rubbing her forearms.

Will wordlessly offers her his coat. When he was married to Nico, she was his only friend, until Lou Ellen moved to attend Court. In the past few months, they have grown even closer. It seems that they are always drawn together during times of pain.

Captain Hedge and Lou Ellen have taken a different route. They have both gone to the guards’ quarters, to have their help in case everything goes south. Even thinking of that possibility is enough to have Will shiver.

In Hazel’s quarters – which she used to share with Nico before the wedding, and once were Nico and Bianca’s – is a secret passageway in the wall. It leads to the King’s quarters, and although she hasn’t used it in years, she once treasured it. They don’t need a torch to pass through, thanks to Will’s power, although he would much prefer to not see all the spider webs and dust. He tries to shine less.

Then they are in front of a door. There’s an emblem, which Will doesn’t look much at, because he can feel it. Hades’ life, hanging thin from his body, all the dents an unknown power is giving it. But first and foremost, Will feels Nico’s dark powers.

He opens the door, scanning the room for Nico. He ignores the bed, the Queen, Lady Reyna. Nico is outside.

He must feel it, too. His back stiffens, his hold on the railing tightens. Will reaches up, and lets his hood fall. Persephone is saying something, so is Lady Reyna, and distantly he can recognize that they are hugging. Someone hugs him, too, but he can only keep his eyes locked in Nico’s.

Nico slips through the shadows, reappearing in front of Will. He looks good, as he always does, but dark circles reside under his eyes, deeper than Will has ever seen them, and he can still recall their first meeting during the war. There’s a light stubble on his jaw, and it hits Will that Nico has grown more than he was expecting. Will feels like a boy, foolish and new to the world in front of someone more experienced.

“Looking for someone?” Will manages to crack out.

Nico raises a hand, his fingertips lightly graze Will’s jaw. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes go up and down Will’s body, checking for injuries that Will doesn’t have. Or maybe he getting a sense of all the changes Will’s body has seen, too.

Will covers Nico’s hand with his own, stepping closer. He wraps his other arm around Nico, his face takes refuge in the crook of the other’s neck. After a few moments, Nico’s arms are around him, too.

“Darlin’, I can’t breathe,” Will manages to say. There’s a hand in his hair, tugging the curls, and a deep blush on his cheeks.

Nico’s hold doesn’t falter. He stretches an arm, though, to envelope Hazel in the hug. Will laughs around a mouthful of her hair.

“How are you two here?” Persephone finally asks after a while, from where she is sitting near Hades on the bed. Her hand is playing with his hair, her touch alone full of love and adoration. It’s a peculiar sight to Will, in a way, since he has never seen her so openly expressing her love. Or, to be more accurate, while the King’s eyes have never been able to hide his strong feelings for his Queen, she doesn’t let anything betray her true emotions.

“We should invest in better guards,” Hazel tells her. She lets go of Nico, who follows her movements like a hawk, as she sits on the King’s other side, affectionately cradling his hand in hers.

Nico’s left hand stays on Will’s hip, his arm wrapped around his waist. Will leans more against him. Their powers thrum together, he can feel it, his light reaching for Nico’s darkness.

 _I missed you_ , Will wants to scream. _I missed you, I missed you, I missed you._ But they are not alone, as much as Will wishes they were, so he stays silent. He hasn’t felt such warmth in a long time.

“I trained to be better,” Hazel says quietly. “So that I could come back and help.”

“Captain Hedge and Lou Ellen are in the guards’ quarters,” Will adds, a shiver runs down his back when he locks eyes with Nico. “In case anything went wrong and Hazel was caught.”

“Do you think you can undo the curse?” Persephone asks, softly as though talking to a kid.

“I have good reasons to hope so.”

“I trust you,” Nico says lowly, his eyes bearing much heaviness into Will’s, to the point a lump forms in his throat. “Both of you.”

Two nights. It takes them two nights. Will can hear Nico pacing outside, and sometimes when he tries to concentrate, the guards’ voices reach him. They tell the visitors that the King is not in shape to be seen.

Visitors come, and they aren’t let in. The sun is high in the sky.

The King is in no shape to be seen, and the moon has long since taken place in the sky.

Will is tired, but Hazel is holding on, and he can’t let her down, so he goes on, and the sun is shining once again.

Night comes again, and it brings counsel. Night has come back, and so has the King. He hugs his daughter, then Will, and then his daughter again. Will leaves them alone. The door isn’t shut behind him yet, when he notices Nico sitting in the alcove in the opposite wall. The crown is crooked upon his head.

Will sits next to him, the marble cold against his skin. The guards’ eyes are on him, waiting for a signal of what he wants to do to their King. Will takes Nico’s hand in his, and Nico falls closer to him, still unconscious. The sky is painted in pink when Nico blinks awake.

Will smiles, and talks in a whisper. “You might want to put the crown down,” he says. “We wouldn’t want your father to take offense.”

Nico smiles back, his joyful laughter echoes through the hall. He hugs Will, and it’s enough to make his eyes burn. Nico kisses him, a bit awkward in the angle they are in. When he tucks his head in Will’s neck, Will feels something warm and wet on his skin. He hugs Nico tighter.

It’s okay. They’ll be okay.

“To hell with the Council,” Nico murmurs. “To hell with the paperwork. As soon as this crown is off my head, we’re going to the temple. I can’t watch you leave again, nor leave you behind.”

“Are you asking me…?”

“Runaway with me.”

He says yes. So they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! This was kind of a journey. I hope the end was as satisfying to you as it was to me  
> I promise that I will also update the Pride and Prejudice au soon, lol

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are appreciated because i am a bit of a validation needy bitch


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